Guilt-Ridden
by DeepLittleSOB
Summary: "But you did the right thing," Dean tells her as she looks to him for help. "Sometimes… we have to do shit that's ugly. And dishonest. I know you feel guilty, and I would too… but I would've done the same exact thing. We have a crappy job and it's never as cut and dry as you want it to be. Sometimes the shades of gray will drive you nuts." Part 18 of series.
1. Guilt is a Bitch

**This is the eighteenth story in my series.**

**DISCLAIMER: I do not own or have the right to anything of the Supernatural universe. I'm just playing in their sandbox.**

* * *

Sam opens the door to the cabin after the short drive back from Helena, two duffels over his shoulder and a slight smile on his face. After helping out Amy and making sure she's not off all rails it's good to be back to his temporary home. It's actually feeling pretty good for once in his life.

"Lizzy, hey," he greets when he sees the woman walking around the living room.

"Hey," Lizzy says quickly back in an exasperated tone as she rushes past him, her face stressed as Sammy cries into her ear with his head on her shoulder. She runs to the stove where there's a pot boiling over and the grinding sound coming through the open basement door fills the small space.

"Jesus Christ," Lou complains instantly as she and Sam walk into the slightly disheveled cabin and drop their baggage. The noise level is high, the stress level is higher, and the littered about cloth diapers, opened books, and chaotic kitchen area just adds to the insanity before her. "The fuck is going on in here?"

"Uh, God. Sammy's hungry, I'm trying to make dinner, Ralph called from the road and needs some info on a harpy out in Oregon but Bobby's still gone, and Dean's decided to do cast removal two weeks early all by his damn self." She takes a pot off the burner with anger, the metal clanging against the old gas stove, and turns to Sam and Lou while bouncing Sammy. "Welcome to my hell."

"Aw," Lou gets mushy immediately and marches right for Lizzy. She rubs Sammy's back and offers, "Lemme take him. I can feed him for you…"

"I don't have any bottles ready," Lizzy tells her with absolute annoyance while pressing a hand to her forehead. "Haven't had time after I had to make yet another two hour round trip run into the next town over to get more diapers and some protection supplies from the only occult store in the entire state…."

"That's ok, Lizard," Lou says to relax her. "I can make dinner instead."

"Sweetie, I love you… but you burn water."

"I'll cook, Lou will research, you feed Sammy," Sam plans it all out and is in front of the oven in a second. "What're you making?"

"Just a stir fry," she explains. "Rice boiled over because I left it on too high but the timer is going for it. I chopped a couple things up already but we'll need more because I didn't know you guys were coming back. And the chicken is still in the fridge…"

"I got it," Sam stops her, smiling calmly. "You just get the little guy fed, alright?"

Lizzy sighs and her face lightens despite Sammy's loud crying. "Thank God you guys are back."

"You missed us, huh?" Lou says sarcastically, knowing already that it's true.

"You couldn't begin to understand how much," Lizzy says with still running frustration that her husband is half down for the count so everything has been up to her. "I'm gonna head up to feed him and finally get this place a little more peaceful." She glances at the basement doorway, the source of the grinding sounds and the jarringly loud mechanical whirring down there, and shakes her head. She then practically sprints up the stairs with her howling son to get him into a better, non-crying place ASAP.

"God damn," Lou laughs a little as she heads for the books and Sam moves for the stove.

"No shit," Sam sighs and shakes his head as he looks over the kitchen mess. "Uh, alright. Before I do this I need to check how he's doing before he becomes an amputee."

"Good idea," Lou rolls her eyes as Sam disappears.

"Dude!"

Dean lifts his head and sees Sam standing at the bottom of the stairs in the basement. He kills the power to the bone saw before saying, "You're back."

"And you're making your wife very nervous," Sam says lightly as he walks towards Dean, looking over the cut line he's made from thigh to knee, it being nearly straight. "Couldn't just wait a few more days to make Lizzy happy?" he questions, hand out to his sides.

"I can't take it anymore," Dean explains away quickly. "I hate this thing. I can't even help her out with Sammy like this. I'm done being worthless. You mind?" He gestures to the work still left to be done to free himself and Sam relents easily.

"Fine," he responds without much enthusiasm as he steps over to Dean, ready to help. He's half-done already anyways so might as well just help finish the job in a more safe way. "Lizzy's looking overwhelmed up there."

"She thinks she has to do everything," Dean explains as he grabs one side of the cut line, Sam grabbing the other. "You know how she is."

"Not happy until everyone else is happy?" Sam takes a not so wild guess as he starts to pull open the cast, it being tough going with the plaster's strength.

"Bingo," he responds, his teeth clenched as they both use their full strength and the cast barely budges. "Fuck, man." He complains when they both give up at the same time. "Fucker's not willing to go quietly."

"Probably because medical professionals are supposed to do this," Sam points out and backs away, hands on his hips as he looks the stubborn cast over.

"Screw that. I've seen enough quacks in my life. And who's to say that next quack ain't just a Leviathan waiting to chomp on my liver."

"Dean… nothing will _ever_ want to eat your liver. It's too damaged," Sam returns with, a small smile on his face.

"Ha-ha," Dean sourly answers back as he looks up at his brother's face from the old wooden chair he's sitting in. "What is that?"

"What is what?"

"Now, if I'm not mistaken… and I don't think that I am… that looked like a smile."

Sam give his brother a look of disbelief for the mention of smiles.

"Yeah, yeah, make fun of me all you want for saying it. It just means that I think you might be getting laid on the regular for once."

"You think the only reason I'd ever be smiling is becau…"

"Because you're getting the bueno sexo." He smirks with unwarranted pride.

Sam eyes his brother. "You've been watching too much Telemundo."

"It's the only channel we get," he complains right back.

"Great. Look, I'm not gonna break down my sex life with you…"

"Not asking for that. I'm just glad you have one for once," Dean informs him of his personal pride.

"But… it's not about the sex…"

"It's a little about the sex," his brother corrects for him.

Sam sighs. "Yeah, fine… that's part of it. But, I don't know… I'm just in a good place."

"You mean besides the whole head games with Lucifer thing?"

"Yeah, besides that."

"And the Leviathan," Dean keeps going.

"Well, yeah…"

"And the fact that our home base is gone. And our one and only powerful friend got himself killed…"

"Point taken," Sam interrupts him.

"But you're still in a good place?" Dean eyes his brother as he retakes the bone saw.

"Well… yeah," Sam nods after thinking about it for a second. "I really am."

Dean nods and makes a face of acceptance. His brother's happy. Miracles do happen.

"Here," Dean hands over the saw and moves on, not looking to make this an emotional conversation. "I can't get down that far. You wanna kill her off?"

"Sure," Sam says, taking the saw and moving on to finishing off the cast for his brother.

* * *

"Thank you, Sam-I-Am," Lizzy says to her brother-in-law as she sits down to a meal, one she didn't have to cook herself.

"Not a problem," Sam answers back as he puts down a plate of the stir fry she started in front of her. "You look like you've been busy around here while we were gone."

"A little," she huffs a laugh as she watches Dean get up from the couch to join them. She catches the limp in his stride immediately. "Damn it. You took it off too soon, didn't you?"

"I'm fine," Dean brushes off and limps to the refrigerator. "Nothing I can't handle. I'm just happy the damn thing is gone." She makes an upset, angry face at him. "Hey, at least I can move again."

"Yeah, like a lame horse," Lizzy rolls her eyes over he husband's frustrating ways. "Just don't complain to me when it heals wrong."

"It won't," he assures her as he cracks open a bottle of beer with his wedding ring.

"Yeah, because when it comes to medical stuff I wouldn't know a thing," Lizzy caustically responds, receiving a sarcastic grin from her husband in return. "Just please let me know if something feels wrong or it starts to hurt too much? _Please_?"

"I'll tell you," Dean promises as he sits down next to her.

"Yeah right…"

"I swear, ok?" Dean tries to make her believe him. He grabs her hand under the table. "I promise if something feels wrong I'll tell you."

"You better."

He just grins his usual grin and squeezes her hand before letting go.

"What's with this guy?" Lou asks as she walks down the stairs from the second floor. "I tried putting him down but he's wired."

"There's a lot of people in the house again after a couple days," Lizzy shrugs. "You guys are exciting."

"A regular party!" Lou says jokingly while smiling at Sammy in her hold. He lifts his head off her shoulder to look at her. "Oh, you missed me." She kisses his cheek and Sammy starts to look around the room at everyone and thing.

"He did, and so did I," Lizzy laughs as she takes a bite of her dinner. She then realizes she has nothing to drink in front of her.

Lizzy gets up and heads for the refrigerator. On her way she nearly runs into Lou as she walks around with Sammy. They try to get past each other and instead get in each other's way twice. She laughs with the moment.

"Excuse me," Lizzy says lightly as Lou steps aside for her, gesturing for her to go first. She smiles and kisses Sammy on the cheek on her way past. Before she gets to the refrigerator she catches the bit of skin showing on Lou's hip as she shirt rose up while holding Sammy. She sees a couple bruises. "What happened here?"

As Lizzy reaches over to pull up the hem of her shirt a little more she can see the whole series of four small bruises. "Oh, uh…" Lou pauses. "Casualty of the job, you know how it is."

"Damn," Lizzy says, brow furrowed as she looks over the four small yet deep bruises in a row. She then checks the back side of her hip and sees just one more. It dawns on her. "Holy fuck."

"What?" Lou asks, glancing at Sam quickly, the man looking bashful already.

Lizzy lines her fingers and thumb up with the bruises, her hand lining up perfectly as she finds it wrapped around her hip.

"You got into some trouble on this last hunt, did you?" she asks Lou with total disbelief.

"A little," Lou says lightly, catching Sam's eye again and smirking with pride. Those bruises were from him and they both know it. "I'm ok, Lizzy."

"Oh, I'm sure you are," she laughs a little and stands behind Lou, grabbing her hips in line with the telltale marks. "Hope it was worth the damage." She then obscenely humps Lou from behind, Dean laughing at her antics.

"Really? While I'm holding your son?" Lou asks without really reacting.

"Whatever, you giant slut bag," Lizzy says with disbelief and a laugh as she moves past Lou to the refrigerator to grab a drink. "And Sam… maybe ease up on my sister when you fuck her from behind next time, huh?"

"Awkward," Sam says when his brother gives him the most delighted look.

"You want me to take him?" Sam asks Lou as she walks around while letting Sammy look wherever he pleases. He needs a distraction for the moment.

"Nah," Lou says, never ready to give him up, and turns her back to him and walks away from him. "We're ok."

"Alright," Sam shrugs it off and sits down to eat, all the while getting an odd feeling from her. She's been off ever since they started the drive home.

* * *

"I'm exhausted," Lou comments as she quickly strips her clothes down to her underwear and t-shirt, looping her arms through her undone bra without removing her shirt.

"I hear ya," Sam comments right back, his boxerbriefs and t-shirt all he has on as they both jump into bed, Sam settling in like usual. Lou lies on her back on her side of the mattress, looking at the ceiling and not at all moving anywhere close to Sam.

"Long day, you know?" Lou makes small talk to the wooden beams running across the underside of the cabin roof. She sighs.

"I do know," Sam says with a furrow brow, looking at her from his pillow. He turns onto his side to face her better. "Hey, uh… you alright?"

"Hm?" Lou asks, looking to him and seeing his concern. "Oh yeah. I'm ok. Just… you know… tired."

"Alright…" Sam responds, unconvinced as he reaches out for her. He runs a hand over her stomach before it comes to rest on her opposite hip. "You just seem off to me. You have since we left Helena."

"What do you mean?" she punches out with wide eyes.

Sam just smiles slightly when she turns to look at him sharply, the odd reaction something he wasn't ready for. "I mean… you seem off. You're, like, jittery. And you're avoiding me."

"Why would I avoid you?" Lou asks, her stomach dropping with the very thought that he might know what she did.

Sam huffs a laugh. "I don't know. You tell me."

When she pauses because she doesn't know what to say Sam gets a little more suspicious.

"Sam, everything's ok," Lou promises.

Sam just nods slightly, his confusion setting in. "Ok."

"Good."

"You're sure you're alright?" he tries one last time.

"Yes, Sam… _I'm fine_."

"You do realize what a bad actress you are, right?"

Lou forces out a laugh as she drops a hand over his on her side. "I'm sorry. I'm… distracted. The whole friendly monster thing is still kinda blowing my mind right now… and that you were friends with her as a kid? Still kind of weird." She huffs with guilt deep in her chest.

"It's weird, I'll give you that," Sam smiles calmly. "And I get how much I just challenged your beliefs."

Lou nods and looks back to the ceiling. Right now she wishes there was a way to take Bobby's bed for the night without looking super suspicious.

"I owe you one."

Lou looks back at him, not understanding.

"You went against what you believe in for me," Sam explains himself. "I know how wrong you felt about letting Amy go and you still did. It's nice to know you trust me."

Lou stares at him blankly for a beat as the bile starts to creep up her throat. "Of course I trust you." And she does. She really does. But on this one she just knew better. It wasn't about trust. It was about the safety of the general public and putting down a dangerous, murderous monster.

Sam leans forward, kissing her sweetly once in thanks. Lou kisses him back but cuts it short when she can feel his want to keep going. She can't do that. Not right now.

"Good night, Sam," she smiles uncomfortably as she looks at him, her hand on his cheek holding him off a bit before she rolls over.

And Sam's left completely confused. From the moment she came back and figured out how to reacquaint with touch and affection she's been nothing but all over him. She's not afraid to steal a kiss through the day or jump his bones at night. But he gave her an opening, they have a moment alone… and she's going to sleep. He didn't see it coming and for her this isn't normal.

Sam reaches out to turn off the lamp on the nightstand before settling in on his back, his arm against her body even as she's turned away. He likes to know she's there and if she does wake up with her Purgatory-riddled mind going (even if it's been weeks since it's happened) he wants to know and be ready to help in a moment's notice.

Maybe she is just really tired like she claims. Maybe they don't have to run hot every second. A break might be just fine and quite frankly it might be a good thing. No two people can stay in that phase forever.

And more than the lack of sex, it's Lou's lack of want to have sex that's bothering him. He's never once seen her not fully interested. It's when someone like Lou doesn't want to fool around that he's worried.

While Lou lays there, on her side facing the wall, she knows how obvious she's being… but she can't seem to do anything about it. She needs time to sort her actions out and figure out how to get past this breach of trust she's made.

If she can, that is.

* * *

By two in the morning Lou's still up.

She never got a wink. She couldn't. The guilt wouldn't let her drift off, not even for a couple minutes. She needs to get up and get out of this damn room.

"Lou?" Sam asks the second she moves, pulling right out of his sleep when she shifts in bed next to him.

"Relax, I'm with it," she says, swinging her feet over the mattress edge and sitting up. "No Purgatory."

"Good," Sam sighs and relaxes into his pillow. "Can't sleep?"

"I, uh…" she thinks quickly. "No, I'm just heading for the bathroom."

"Ok," Sam nods and sits up, moving over to her side. He slips an arm around her waist and leans into her neck, placing one quick kiss there. "Hurry back?"

"Yeah," Lou fake smiles and looks over to him. She presses a kiss to his lips quickly before standing. She throws on her jeans. "I'll be back soon. Just go back to sleep."

"Ok," Sam says, his head already on the pillow and his eyes closed. The concussion is still doing its worst on him as he heals and she has no problem taking advantage of that.

Quickly Lou heads out to the rest of the open spaced cabin. She grabs her coat and leaves through the front door. Once outside in the brisk night air she takes a deep breath and exhales slow, the freedom of being alone just perfect in the moment.

She jogs for the Impala and opens the trunk with the keys she never took out of her coat. In the box of rifle bullets she pulls out the pack of cigarettes she bought and stashed when they stopped at a gas station on the way.

She quietly closes the trunk and walks for the steps while unwrapping the pack. Within a minute she has one out, between her lips, and lit, inhaling once and closing her eyes as she remembers how much she loved to smoke so long ago.

As she sits there, the quiet woods surrounding her and making her feel more alone an ever, she's shocked that she doesn't feel alarmed or panicky. She assumed that the forest would forever be a bad place for her, pulling her back to her time in Purgatory, but she's holding it together.

Because her guilt is killing her far more than her worry and PTSD ever could.

How the fuck is this supposed to work now? Technically she got away with murder on this one. No one but she and that little boy Kitsune know about what she did. But she doesn't feel like she's gotten away with a damn thing. Instead it's more like she's being punished for following her gut.

But that's what's kept her alive for so long. Her gut.

Damn, as if staying with Sam and trying her damnedest to commit to just him and not run away wasn't already hard enough….

"I thought you quit?"

Lou jumps in her seat on the wooden cabin steps as the voice comes out of nowhere.

"Fuck," she whispers to herself as the sound of hobbling comes down the steps to her left and stops right next to her.

Lou watches Dean take his time getting seated next to her, his leg hurting badly enough that even he can't hide it.

"And I thought your leg was ok," Lou balances the lies right out as she takes another drag from her cigarette.

"Fair enough," Dean comments, leaning his elbows onto his knees and looking at her questioningly. "What's this about?"

"What _isn't_ it about?" Lou counters, a hand raking through her blond hair to get it out of her face. The level of stress written into her expression makes Dean fully concerned for her wellbeing. Without a word he takes the cigarette from her hand and brings it to his own lips, taking a solid drag and letting it go into the night air.

Lou just arches an eyebrow at him in question.

"You think you're the only one that had a rebellious stage in your more formative years?" he counters her expression and Lou just shakes her head and laughs a little, pulling another cigarette from her pack.

"I just pictured a twelve year old you standing outside of a middle school puffing away with a Sex Pistols T and some really wide legged JNCOs." She pops the new cigarette into her mouth and lights it while smirking.

"Led Zeppelin and some ripped up jeans, but you were close," Dean laughs right back. He then holds out his cigarette and studies it for a second. "Never stuck with it too long... but that might be because I got my ass kicked when I got caught at fourteen."

"Ass kicked?" Lou asks with surprise.

"John was a believer in the corporal punishment system sometimes," Dean explains, taking a drag.

"Yikes," she responds with horror.

"Nah, I don't blame him. Nothing else worked on me."

"Too much of a bad ass for your own good, huh?"

"Absolutely." Dean grins at that one.

"Still are I think… sometimes," Lou says, looking off at the tree line as she puffs away.

"L would agree with that."

"I know," Lou huffs a laugh, knowing that Dean gives her a challenge on a daily basis. "She can handle you though."

"Sadly… that's very true."

"I got caught once," Lou says peering over at her newfound friend and former sworn enemy. "But I never got my ass kicked for it."

"So what was your punishment if it wasn't a beating?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing?" Dean questions with surprise.

"Nope," Lou sighs. "Jane didn't believe in constricting her children's choices to the defined ideal that she had set for her own personal self as an individual human being and spirit." She looks at Dean already aware that he's bound to make fun.

"What the fuck does that mean?"

"It means she wanted me to be me. If I was a smoker… then I was a smoker. She sat me down and told me of the health horrors of it and said that I should decide for myself."

"What was she smoking herself when she said that?" Dean laughs.

"Most days? Weed," Lou answers and smiles wide, knowing he wasn't expecting that.

"Seriously?" Dean asks, taking a drag.

"Very seriously."

"A real hippie."

"My full name is Louise Starshine Becker. You tell me?"

Dean, having not realized _how_ hippie Lou's mother was until now, just looks at her for a moment to process the information. And then bursts out in laughter.

"Laugh it up, dude," Lou says with a smile, smoking and relaxing for the first time all day. "But my parents never beat me up for my mistakes."

"Talk about opposite upbringings," Dean says as he dies down his laughing.

"Oh yeah, John and Jane were reading two very different parenting books." Lou smiles again and takes a drag.

"Yet you're not even close to being a hippie," Dean points out to her. "Aside from the guitar playing."

"I rebelled, remember?" she says quickly.

"Right," he nods and smiles before taking another drag.

It grows silent for a moment, each sitting there and thinking over the moment that was far too easy between them.

"So why is it that I find you out here, smoking for the first time in years, all alone?" Dean questions, flicking the butt of his cigarette into the grass in front of the cabin.

"Life sucks," Lou says simply.

"I don't know… you're here," Dean points out to counter her downer answer.

"Yeah, in the middle of the woods, hiding from the unkillable monsters of my worst nightmares…"

"But you're _here_," Dean keeps going despite her interruption. "You got out."

"One hell to another…"

"I disagree. You have your family. You have a pretty awesome nephew if I do say so myself. And you got Sam and your sister back."

"And I got you," Lou adds in for him.

Dean huffs at her words. "Yeah, kiddo. You got me."

Lou quirks the side of her mouth up before biting her bottom lip. "You ever do anything… bad?"

Dean looks at her with disbelief. "You remember who you're talking to, right?"

"Yeah, which is why I ask _you_," she says, looking him square in the eye. "You ever do something that you know would really, _really_ piss someone off… but it was the right thing to do so you do it anyways?"

Narrowed green eyes look at her strange. "You gonna give me some specifics or I am I gonna have to treat that statement like some Charlie Kauffman movie?"

Lou closes her eyes. "Look… I just… fuck. I did something that I know would seriously piss someone off. Like… maybe not talk to me ever again kinda piss them off."

"You talking about Sam?"

"Doesn't matter who it is," Lou quickly corrects. "Someone asked me to do something and I went against it because, to me… what I was asked to do wasn't the _right_ thing to do."

"Then why feel bad?" Dean asks, seeing the situation, as vague as it is, as black and white like usual.

"Because…." Lou stops. She shouldn't be saying all this. This is Sam's brother, Sam's best friend and confidant. So stupid. "You know what? You're right. I'm probably just worrying about nothing."

"You sure?" Dean pries a little more, knowing she's shutting down on him.

"I'm sure," she smiles falsely and flicks her finished cigarette in the general direction that Dean did. "I'm sorry I woke you up and got you smoking." She lifts the pack a little and shrugs. "Not trying to get you in trouble."

"Trouble?'

"Oh yeah," she emphasizes.

"Is L gonna kill me for one little cigarette?"

"I'd brush your teeth before jumping into bed if I were you," Lou says, patting his shoulder.

"Thanks for the heads up," he huffs a laugh and stands up. Lou doesn't follow. "You coming?"

"Uh, no," she answers, not ready to go. "I think I need another minute. Just not tired."

"You sure nothing else is eating you?" Dean has to check one last time.

"Dean, go inside and worry about someone else for a second, ok?"

"That's what I get for being concerned?"

"Yup."

"You're kind of a bitch."

"Fuck off, old man."

Dean shakes his head and opens the door, read to head back into the life of father and husband, waking up whenever his son did to feed him. It was a nice distraction finding Lou outside, though.

And Lou just sits and thinks. And sulks. And becomes even surer that she maybe might have been wrong this time. Maybe she should have listened to Sam.


	2. Anger Management

_**A Week Later**_

* * *

"Crap," Sam says aloud while sitting at the kitchen table behind his laptop. "Dean? Hey?"

"Yeah?" Dean absently returns with, eyes glued to the Telenovela.

"You remember Buck and Wade?"

"The, uh… the hunters dad used to work with now and then?" Dean answers after thinking it over real quick. He stands up from the couch, checking to be sure Sammy's still fully asleep in his baby seat next to him, and heads for the table.

"Yeah," Sam nods. "I… I think they're dead."

Lou's ears perk up at the sound of this and looks on from her seat across from Sam at the table.

"What happened?" Dean asks with a lowered brow, leaning over the laptop to share it with Sam and read on.

"Not too sure," Sam answers and starts to read an article. "Cedar City, Utah. Police were called to the Valu Inn Motel when a disturbance was reported. When they arrived they found two bodies that, with a lot of serious digging, they determined were Wade Neal and Buck Shelton."

"That's them alright," Dean comments, remembering the two clearly now. John worked with them off and on when they'd call and need his help. Whenever a job was done Buck and Wade would insist on buying dinner and Sam and he were always invited. They were good to the young boys when they knew them, especially Wade since he'd grown up in a hunting family too. He sympathized.

"Get this… they killed themselves," Sam says with a shocked face as he looks over at Dean with the news.

"What!?" Dean disbelieves, taking the laptop and turning it to read for himself. This sounds so wrong.

"Bullet to the heart for Wade, the gun found in his lap… oh my God," Sam says, shaking his head with how weird and wrong this sounds. "Buck was found decapitated. He did it himself."

"He decapitated himself!?" Dean repeats, sure that he couldn't have heard that right.

"Yeah. Machete was still rigged up in a way that he could pull it off when they found his body," Sam says, brow wrinkled with sheer distress over the idea.

"You can decapitate yourself?" Dean says with shock. "Huh… that would take a lot of… I don't even know what, to choose to end it all by lopping your own head off."

"And it would take a whole lot of strength that I'm not convinced a near sixty year old hunter would have."

"And a bullet to the _heart_? Does that sound weird to anyone else?"

Lou raises her hand to let them know she's listening and agreeing with the two of them completely.

"Super friggin' weird," Sam concurs, the details really throwing him off. He sits back in his seat as the shock settles over him. "I mean, their lives weren't glamorous but they would never off themselves."

"What the hell?" Dean says in a daze as he sits down in an open kitchen chair.

"So you knew these guys well?" Lou hops into the conversation, everything really peaking her interest. That and she's been bored. This might be a way to get out. She's smelling a hunt.

"Yeah," Dean looks at her, his eyes sunken a bit and sad. "They, uh… they worked with dad sometimes. When they needed help they'd call him up. They were good guys." Dean looks down at the table top for a moment and laughs. "Remember how Buck would always call you Squirt?"

"How could I forget?" Sam says flatly, fingers clicking away at his laptop.

"And remember how Wade would always tell me to stop hassling you because you were gonna outgrow me one day?" Dean huffs a laugh.

"Guess he pegged that one."

"Guess he did," Dean nods, remembering.

Sam pauses working for a second. "And Wade would always buy us a stash of candy bars and we'd hide them in our duffels for months on end from dad."

"No way was I letting dad get his hands on those Snickers," Dean denies instantly. "That candy junkie would always steal our haul every Halloween."

"And you'd bitch about it for a week."

"Hey, I earned that candy," Dean declares. "You think making good costumes out of whatever's laying around a motel room is easy?"

"Damn," Sam says, sitting back in his seat and running both hands through his long hair with upset. "I can't believe they're gone."

"Yeah. They seemed invincible, didn't they?"

"Somehow, yeah. They did," Sam recollects and agrees.

"But I guess no hunter is invincible…"

When both sit for a second, silently remembering two good hunters, Lou starts to see where this is going. It _is_ a hunt. She could get out and possibly get away from Sam as she sorts out her guilt. This could be perfect.

"Should we go check this out?" Lou casually asks, sipping her coffee and hoping she's hiding her excitement well enough. She makes it a point to look at only Dean when she asks.

"I think we owe it to them," Dean says, standing up and thinking it over.

"At the very least," Sam agrees.

"And I wanna end the bitch that did this to them," Dean comments with fire growing in him. "They were good guys. They didn't deserve this."

"Well, alright. Count me in," Lou says easily to Dean only as he heads for the coffee maker for his second cup of the day. "Dean, we can leave after you talk to Lizzy. One o'clock ok?"

"Uh," Dean pauses and just looks at Lou. He then stares into his coffee cup nodding, knowing he has to go. He owes Wade and Buck that much for the kindness they always showed he and Sam as children and he'd love to kill the bastard that did this… but leave his family? When the Leviathan are about? "Right… yeah. Be there with bells on."

"Bobby's back," Lou reminds him when she can see his inner conflict. "And Sam's here. They won't be on their own. You can relax."

"Uh, _I'm_ here?" Sam interjects, surprised by Lou's words.

"Yeah," Lou nods and smiles slightly, trying to look kind about it despite knowing he's going to get pissed.

"I'm not staying here." Sam says it with a little confusion and a smile on his face, assuming she must be kidding.

"Yeah, you are," she brushes it off like it's nothing.

"No… I'm not," Sam rebuts again, no grin this time, and closes his laptop to focus on her.

"Your head is a mess."

"No it's not."

"And how many times have you had the devil stop by for coffee and a chat today?"

Three. It's only ten in the morning and Sam has seen Lucifer three times.

"Ok, it's settled," Dean steps in and declares, walking for the staircase to the second floor with a coffee mug in hand. "Lou, I'll be ready by one."

"Wait!" Sam stops everyone. "What the hell? You two can't just gang up on me like that."

"I think that's exactly what we just did," Dean counters right away.

"I'm fine," Sam forces out with anger.

"You think that phrase still works even a little bit anymore?" Lou scoffs at him from her seat. "Sam, you're not fine. And that's ok. Just learn to admit it."

Sam sighs hard. "Just because you worry too much doesn't mean I'm sidelined."

"She's not the only worried one," Dean jumps in.

"Shocker," Sam sarcastically comments.

"And what happens when old Luci shows up mid-hunt, huh?" Dean challenges. "I'm not gonna die because you can't keep your head straight."

"As much as we don't want to, we can handle this one without you," Lou says lightly, her voice loving as she places a hand on his forearm from across the round table. "Plus, we're still looking into the whole Leviathan thing and need you on that…"

"But they're not popping up so for now we've got nothing anyways," Sam points out. "This is Wade and Buck. They were _friends_. I'm not staying here for this one."

"Sam…" Dean tries but gets cut right off.

"Dean, be a father to your son and not me for once. Let me make my own decisions."

Sam gets up out of his chair sharply and marches for the back room he and Lou have been occupying.

"Giant, I just…"

Dean holds up a hand to stop her and let Sam go. Once he's marched his defiant ass out of earshot Dean walks closer to Lou with a dead serious face.

"We gotta leave without him," Lou nearly whispers, knowing how much safer it'd be to just leave Sam behind.

"I know," Dean relents easily. "But are you ready to be on Sam's shit list? It's not a very warm and fuzzy place to be."

"If it means he's here and safe… hell yeah," Lou agree as she knows she'll do anything to keep that broken man from further danger in his condition. She loves him too much to let him leave.

Dean nods, trusting her. "Be ready by noon. We leave quietly, no goodbyes."

"But what if he just comes after us. You know there's a good chance he will."

Dean pauses to think. "He won't if he has no car and we're miles from civilization. Leave that one up to me. I'll handle it. Just pack up the weapons and I'll clue Lizzy in while I pack."

"Kiss that boy for me, huh?" Lou says sadly.

"Will do. Noon, outside." They nod to each other before parting ways to get ready to leave.

* * *

"Didn't I meet them once?" Lizzy asks when the names of the deceased hunters sound familiar. Dean has Sammy on their bed, baby supplies all around the little boy.

"We caught them outside of Tallahassee once," Dean reminds her. "It was right after that ghost hunt where you busted your back."

"Right. Right, the uh, the estate with the weird landscaping that was all creepy," Lizzy says, watching Dean prepare to change a diaper.

"The Maldonado Estate," Dean recalls as Lizzy sits next to their son, smiling at him and distracting him. "And Mr. Maldonado seriously had a hate on for you."

"He was an asshole." She laughs now but back then it wasn't so funny. The ghost tossed her around far too easily as it hyper focused on her while they worked to get rid of him. "But after it was over didn't we all go to that skeevy bar straight out of Texas Chainsaw Massacre? It had dead birds and bone sculptures all over the place?" She scoots back to the middle of the mattress and sits Indian-style.

"Yeah. That place _was_ skeevy," Dean informs her, pulling the tabs of the diaper Sammy's wearing open. "Ha, remember how they had that jar of picked eggs that had to be at least ten years old sitting behind the bar and I dared you to eat one for twenty bucks?"

"No… _I_ dared _you_. And you did it," Lizzy laughs quietly. "And then puked out by the back dumpster the second you got it down."

"Totally worth the twenty bucks," Dean smirks at her and pulls the diaper open. "Son of a bitch!"

"Stinky one?" Lizzy huffs a laugh, knowing how smelly Sammy can be.

"It's so bad I can nearly taste it," he disgusts while grabbing wipes and getting the job over with fast now. "And I think we've hit a new flavor. Uh!"

Lizzy lets Dean focus as he finishes cleaning up Sammy, all the while mumbling about how gross his son is to his son's face. Once a new diaper is pulled out and place under Sammy's tiny bottom she speaks up.

"And it wasn't for twenty bucks." She eyes him with a smirk.

"Yes it was," Dean says with certainty. "It was twenty bucks…

"At first," she corrects. "But you wouldn't do it for twenty. Said it wasn't good enough. But then I put a blow job on the line and you ate one of those nasty eggs in one bite."

Dean nods while thinking it over, closing up the new diaper before snapping closed Sammy's onesie. He then looks over to his wife. "So it was worth it then?"

"Yeah, it was worth it," Lizzy laughs. "And if I remember correctly it was Buck that started the whole someone-totally-needs-to-eat-one-of-those-nasty-eggs thing."

"Sounds right," Dean tells her, picking up their son and pulling him in, his head on Dean's shoulder at first before he picks it up and uncoordinatedly looks around the room. "Buck was like that."

"An instigator?"

"Oh yeah." Dean eyes his son but his actual look is far off. Lizzy picks up on it immediately.

"You were more than old hunting buddies, weren't you? You were friends."

"Knew them damn near my whole life," Dean tells her. "Not too many people left in that category these days besides Bobby."

"The list does seem to get smaller every day, doesn't it?"

Dean nods as he runs a hand down the back of Sammy's now bald head after losing the dark hair he'd been born with. Now more than ever he can see himself in the little boy, his Mini Me. His feature become more defined every day and because he looks more and more like his dad every day his mother seems to get irked by it. He really has not a whole lot of Lizzy in his looks. Dean would never say it aloud but he loves that Sammy is his spitting image.

"So… this where you tell me you're gonna head on out?" Lizzy questions suddenly.

Dean peers over at his wife sitting on their newest bed in their shithole home they've been forced into. She has Sam's big, old brown sweatshirt on, the item she's all but stolen from him at this point, and her arms are wrapped around her middle. She's lost every ounce of pregnancy weight and then some by this point. She's been a worried mess and here he is telling her he wants to leave.

"L, I…"

"Don't," Lizzy all but pleads in a small, very scared voice. "With everything happening… and with our angel in our back pocket gone…" Her voice cracks with the mention of Castiel. "Just don't go. Send someone else. Bobby has so many contacts…"

"These guys are like family," Dean tells her.

"But _we_ are your family," Lizzy says, reminding him that he does have a real family of his own now. "Dean, we are your _actual_ family. We have to stop this at some point. I thought you wanted out."

"I do," Dean says with surprise that she'd think otherwise. "I want away from the shit that could kill me and hurt you and Sammy…"

"Then stop this!" Lizzy says with determination. "Stop. It's that easy. Just don't go."

Dean just looks at her sitting there, asking for something quite justifiable in their situation. She just wants him to be safe and with her. She wants him alive for her son. That's not too much nor is the request over the line.

But he can't.

Dean huffs sadly. "I'm sorry."

"Don't you dare," she answers back. "Don't apologize. If you think two hunters you haven't seen in years are more important than me and your only son…."

"Whoa!" Dean stops her. "Nothing, and I mean _nothing_, is more important to me than what's in this room right now."

"Then act like it!" Lizzy shouts as she stands up with anger. "Act like a father! Act like a husband and be with your family!"

"You need to calm down," Dean warns her in an even, stern voice when he can see her emotions going overboard.

"I'll calm down when I know I won't be a widow any time soon!"

And Dean gets angry. "Stop yelling."

"I'll stop yelling when you stop being a bad father and listen to me!"

"Damn it, stop yelling!" Dean shouts right back. As soon as he does Sammy starts crying in his arms, the noise level scaring him.

The death glare Lizzy shoots his way could kill a man from a mile away.

"Sorry, little man," Dean says with utter sadness the second he upsets Sammy so much. With a hand to back of his son's head he rocks him a bit in apology.

"You need to pack," Lizzy states with fire. She walks right up to Dean and takes Sammy from his arms. "I'll take him. Better not waste any more time getting to your hunt."

Once she has Sammy in her hold, Dean feeling far emptier without his little boy in his arms anymore, she heads for the door of their bedroom.

"If you guys need anything call me," Lizzy tells him. "I'm not leaving here now that I'm a parent but I'm good at research now and I'd rather the father of my child gets some help and comes home after this."

Dean stands there in the silent room once she leaves. This was not how he wanted to leave on a hunt.

As he packs he starts to ponder over if this was the right move for him. She made good points. He's a dad. He isn't just himself and a car now. It's something totally different and maybe he hasn't fully adjusted to that yet. He should stay, be a parent and husband. Be a good man.

But he just can't. Buck and Wade… he certainly owes them this much. He can't let this brutal offing of his friends go.

And worst of all, he just wants to hunt. Dean wants to be on the road. He want to fire his gun and seek the thrill of the chase. He's good there. He's comfortable in that place, more comfortable than the whole dad thing at times. Being a dad is new. Hunting is old.

Now, despite how irresponsible it makes him, he needs to go. He mentally needs this and he hates how much so. It feels terrible and it feels wrong… but he needs to hunt.

Once packed Dean quietly makes his way down the stairs. He's not ready for this departure. She's going to hate him until he comes back home and the guilt of that might crush him. He finds Lizzy pacing the floor in the kitchen area, bouncing a fussing Sammy as he calms down from his scare.

"If he starts talking or he picks up a machete, you text me?" The second the joke leaves his mouth he regrets it.

Lizzy looks at him with damn near hatred. "He'll _never_ pick up a machete."

He gives her an unhappy face.

"Don't you dare look at me like that," she warns. "I'm not the one abandoning my family to purposefully run head first at evil. You don't get to do that." She presses her cheek to Sammy's. "You don't come back and I'll fucking kill you."

Despite her shit attitude and obvious fear, as Lizzy always reacts harshly when this scared, he walks to her. He first kisses Sammy on the bald head. "You watch your mom for me." He then looks his wife in the eye. "Even if you don't agree and you wanna rip my balls off… I still love you. I'll be back in a few days. Count on it." He kisses her cheek and walks for the door, Lizzy not answering back.

On his way he pauses in the doorway. He turns his head just enough to catch her out of the corner of his eyes, never making real eye contact. "I'm sorry." He then leaves.

Lizzy watches him head outside and catches her sister's eyes as she does. Lou's already by the Impala and she waves her goodbye, blows a kiss to Sammy and makes a pouty face. Lizzy just gives her a look that says she's pissed. The apologetic eyes she gets in return makes Lizzy even madder.

Dean then glances at her one more time, giving a sorrowful look, before closing the door as quietly as possible.

Taking just a second, Lizzy stands there and sighs while rocking Sammy. She knew he had to go but seeing it happen still sucks something fierce. She wants dad home, where he belongs, but once more that's not where he needs to be the most according to him. Shockingly, being a father has had to come second a few times too many for either of their liking and yet Lizzy's beginning to wonder if being a father and husband will always come in second on Dean's list. It makes her quite scared.

She can hear the Impala start up and the wheels spin over the gravel of the long, deserted looking driveway.

"Damn it!" she hears Sam shout loud and angrily from behind her as he marches for the front door. He flies past her just in time to see the taillights disappear.

Lizzy doesn't move, recalling the idea from Jurassic Park that an angry dinosaur can't see its prey as long as the prey is statue still. When Sam turns back around and stares daggers into her she knows dino-rules don't apply here and just shares an apologetic, half smile half frown. They didn't bring him to check out this case on purpose. They ditched Sam. Holy fuck this is going to suck.

Once it registers what his brother and girlfriend just did to him, he runs to the wall hook the keys to both cars is usually on. Nothing. It's empty.

"Where're the damn keys!?" Sam thunders out, fists balled up.

"I have no idea," Lizzy honestly tell him. She has no idea what Dean did with them before he left.

"_Lizzy_."

"I swear, I don't know."

Sam's eyes close as he clenches his jaw. Dean took them. They deliberately left without him and stranded him there. They don't trust him in his condition.

She waits for him to yell. She waits for him to stomp around like Sam does when he gets seriously angry. He doesn't do any of those things.

Instead he gives her one look of total disappointment before stomping right past her again, disappearing into the small bedroom in the back of the house. The door to it slams hard, echoing in the cabin sharply before the silence overwhelms her.

She looks to Sammy, his wide eye searching around the open space of the cabin for what could have made that huge boom and she shakes her head.

When Sam gets this pissed it's never good.


	3. Commiserating with the Former Enemy

"Shit," Lou says aloud when she reads the text Lizzy sends her.

"Sam?" Dean questions as he glances at her peering at the screen of her phone.

"He's super pissed," Lou answers and sighs after reading Lizzy's text. "He's not even talking to Lizard. He's just locked in our room."

"Better locked in a room than out in the world with his head the way it is," Dean comments, his steeled face remaining in place. He's determined that he made the right decision here… despite knowing how he'd feel if he was in Sam's place or how he'd feel if he were Lizzy right now… but Wade and Buck were friends. Once more Dean feels like the tough decisions are placed on his head and he has to do the dirty work. It's getting old.

"Yeah…" Lou trails off and looks out the window. She grows suddenly quiet with the mention of Sam.

And the silence is certainly not lost on Dean in the least. He's an observant person. He's noticed a change in them lately. A bad change. He hasn't liked the way Sam keeps looking at Lou like a lost little puppy and the way Lou shies away from him every chance she gets.

"What's with you two?"

Lou looks over to him with surprise and a touch of guilt if he's not mistaken. "What do you mean?"

"_I mean_, what the fuck is up with you two?" he tries again. "Ever since you came back from your little secret hunt the other week it's been just one big awkward Michael Scott moment after another being around you guys. What gives?"

"We're… f-fine," Lou stutters out and immediately sighs when she knows she's a shitty liar.

Dean just glances at her with a look that says he doesn't believe her in the least.

"It's my shit," Lou shakes her head and looks out the side window. "Sam didn't do anything. It's my issues."

"What issues?"

"Doesn't matter."

Silence grows again as Neil Young's voice is quietly playing over the old Impala speakers, Dean having shockingly let her pick out something to play. He respects her taste in music enough to choose something good that he'll also like.

"I'm not buying it," Dean declares after a minute. He's sure she's hiding something.

"I don't care if you buy it or not," Lou keeps her shell hard and sturdy. She's not looking to hash this all out right now.

"And I don't care if you don't care," he says right back. "We're heading into something bad here. I got two friends no longer breathing and who the fuck knows how many Leviathan running around out there gunning for Winchesters. I need your head in the game and from where I'm sitting you don't got that."

She bites her lower lip when Dean makes a good point. Her head isn't in the game all the way.

"So… either spill it or get the hell over it," Dean says in a commanding tone, his leader tendencies spilling out of him. "But we're not heading into this with your brain all jacked up with whatever this is."

"I killed her," Lou says quickly. It comes out like a punch, her voice unable to stop itself from finally letting go of what she's been hanging on to for over a week. She exhales hard once and looks forward at the pavement flying.

"You killed who?" Dean questions, eyes a little wider as he keeps looking back and forth between Lou and the road.

"Amy."

"Ok…" Dean starts and is still just as confused as before he asked. "Who the fuck is Amy?"

"A Kitsune."

"Alright, so, you killed a Kitsune," Dean shrugs, still highly lost. "Well, kudos to you…"

"I wasn't supposed to," Lou vaguely explains.

"Why not?"

"She was Sam's friend."

Blinking a few times, his mind more confused than before she started explaining, Dean shakes his head. "Sam… he's what?"

Deep breath in, Lou lets it all go. "Years ago when you and John were hunting a Kitsune, Sam met a girl at the library. He really liked her, saved her from some bullies, and he went home with her. They hung out and after a while he put it together that she was a Kitsune and her mother was the monster you were in town to kill. Her mom came home and she went after Sam and Amy killed her mother to save him. She then disappeared until over a week ago when there were killings in Bozeman that sounded like her pattern. We went to talk to her, she had a good reason for the killings, and promised not to kill again. Sam let her go for a second time but I… didn't."

"Crap," Dean immediately says when her story is over. "So he's pissed at you for killing her?"

"He doesn't _know_ I killed her," Lou admits. "When we went on this hunt he made me promise that I'd follow his lead and we'd only kill her if we had to. He didn't feel like we had to. For some reason he seriously trusts this chick and when she said she wouldn't kill again he believed her. I didn't believe her at all."

"Neither would I."

Lou sighs heavily with the weight of the guilt she's amassed. "So on our way home I tracked her and shoved a silver knife through her heart. And then… I just never told him. I did it behind his back." She presses a hand to her forehead with stress. "God damn it, he trusted me…."

"But you did the right thing," Dean looks at her and gives her a face of understanding. "Sometimes… we have to do shit that's ugly. And dishonest. I know you feel guilty, and I would too… but I would've done the same exact thing."

"I wish that made me feel better." Lou shakes her head with it all, at a loss.

When Dean takes a good look at her he can see the tired eyes and worry lines in her face. This has taken a toll on her.

He shifts in his seat and reaches into his jacket pocket. Once he has the flask in his hand he holds it out to her, knowing a drink wouldn't be too terrible right now.

Staring at it for only a fraction of a second, Lou snatches it and unscrews the cap.

"We have a crappy job," Dean reminds her, doing what he can to comfort her with what she's done as she takes a long pull of whiskey. He can understand doing what one thinks is the right thing to do and then carrying the weight of the guilt that comes with it. That's his life in a nutshell. "And it's never as cut and dry as you want it to be. Sometimes the shades of gray will drive you nuts. You really think this Amy would have killed again?"

Lou knows any good mother would kill for their child so the answer is easy. "Absolutely."

"Then what is there to feel so shitty about?"

"I lied to him," Lou answers easily, more whiskey going down smoother than it should. "All he wanted was for me to follow his lead. To trust him. And I couldn't. I didn't trust him."

"Yeah, but normally you do… right?"

"Yeah."

"So knock it off," Dean shrugs. "Lou, you did the best you could. Clearly this chick is a soft spot for him and Sam's always been clouded by his soft spots…"

"He's the peanut butter to your jelly then," Lou comments dryly and drinks again.

Dean closes his eyes for a second and bites his tongue. "But you knew better. You did the dirty work that he couldn't and you saved him yet more heartache in his life. And you saved who knows how many people while you were at it. Don't tear yourself up over this one."

"Easier said than done," she returns with.

"Isn't it always," Dean comments right back as they drive on, Lou quickly killing the rest of his flask to get through the ride and the burden.

It does feel a little better to have gotten that off her chest. It wasn't easy speaking the truth out loud but if anyone would get it she knew it'd be Dean. Lizzy might side with Sam since she's such an emotional person, even more now that she's a mom than ever before, and Bobby… she can never tell Bobby the shit she does wrong. Lou know she can trust him but it just always feels like disappointing her father when she has to come clean.

Dean's a black and white kind of guy, just like her. And maybe Lou shouldn't be anymore.

"I'm a hypocrite now, aren't I?"

"Why?" Dean asks, shocked she'd say such a thing.

"I killed a monster," Lou says to him quietly. "And I was one. For a _while_. Amy tried to do right, just like I did…"

"Would you have wanted us to kill you?" Dean stops her. "If you were in your right, human mind… wouldn't you have wanted us to kill you back then?"

"Of course."

"Then where's the hypocrisy in that?" Dean questions with an annoyed tone. "Damn it, Lou… you gotta calm down about this. You were right. Sam was wrong to let a killing machine go. Ok?"

She doesn't say anything.

"_Ok_?" Dean tries again and she groans.

"Yes. Ok," she petulantly returns. "You're right."

"Then… alright," Dean tries to end it there so they can move on and get to their job. "Good."

And Lou thinks she should feel better. Outside perspective says she was right and she let out her dirty little secret once and for all. She did the right thing.

Then why does she still feel shitty about it?

"At least you pissed off _your_ other half or whatever for a good reason… unlike me," Dean comments, a hand washing down his weary and upset face. His own departure wasn't very good either. He can feel her pain right now.

"Lizard didn't take your hunting well I'm guessing?"

"Well? More like I'm in the dog house," he responds.

"You're doing a good thing here," Lou tries to assure him. "And you didn't lie to her. She'll get over it."

"Nah, this isn't a new fight for us," Dean explains. "She nearly decked me when Cass was all jacked up and I left for the millionth time to try and help him. This time she actually threatened to kill me."

"Yikes," Lou comments.

"Yeah."

Lou stays quiet for a moment. "You know… maybe she's right."

Dean shoots her a look.

"Hear me out, douche bag," she quickly gets angry. "You're a fucking dad, dude. You have new responsibilities. I think that if Sam and I ever had a kid, which I _don't_ plan on ever happening, and he left to hunt and put his ass on the line I wouldn't be very happy either."

"But what about that whole speech you gave me!?" Dean starts to get upset with her. "Huh? The whole I gotta defend the world my kid will grow up in? That I was a better father on the road?"

"I still believe that one hundred percent," Lou assures him. "I just wouldn't if I were Lizzy is all. And this hunt isn't about the Leviathan. It's about something else altogether. It's about a couple friends and for her that seems… less important."

"And if it were about Garth? Or Mari?" Dean questions, naming two hunters he knows Lou and Lizzy have encountered in the past and have grown very fond of.

"Then she'd probably look at this differently. Dean, look, I'm just saying she's a momma-bear now. Her cub deserves everything, especially a father that's alive. I get it. But I totally get your angle too. Somewhere you two will figure this out, find some common ground on this or, like, a compromise. You guys always do."

"Yeah…" Dean trails off, thinking about it. Good points made by Lou and all, he's still worried about their little family. He's worried about their relationship as it's been a touchy subject for them for a while now.

"For now though," Lou says, pointing out the windshield to a diner coming up. "For that terrible departure that we had to endure, we deserve a solid lunch."

Dean smirks and looks over to her. "Alright. I hate you a little less all of a sudden."

"Back at you, douche bag," Lou huffs a laugh as the Impala turns into the diner parking lot.

* * *

"Sam?" Lizzy says quietly, knocking three soft times on the back room where Sam's been holed up for a half hour since Dean and Lou ditched him. She's got Sammy held to her shoulder in one arm and she just couldn't wait any longer for her brother-in-law to come back out after how angry he was when he locked himself in his room. She cares far too much about him to just let it go. "Sam-I-Am, come on. Talk to me? Please?"

"Liz?" she hears Bobby call right after the basement door opens.

"Hey Bobby," she sighs and leaves Sam's door to speak with the man.

"The hell's goin' on up here?" he questions as it's too quiet in the small cabin. One glance out the window at where the cars are usually parked and he knows something's up. "Where the Impala?"

"Dean and Lou left to check something out," she explains. "Apparently a couple old hunting friends of Dean and Sam's died pretty mysteriously."

"Who?" Bobby pauses and stares at her with dread. He knows all the hunters the Winchesters know and well.

"Uh, Buck and Wade," she says. "I met them once a while back. They seemed like good guys…"

"Balls!" Bobby laments instantly, the news painful to hear. "They were. The fuck happened to them?"

"They killed themselves…"

"What!?"

"It's super suspicious. Sounds far too fishy to be normal," she explains, bouncing Sammy in her arm while grabbing the newspaper form the counter to hand it over to him. "Dean and Lou bounced to see what the hell's up."

"And they left Sam against his will I take it," he says as he picks up the paper and starts to ready.

"Yeah, how'd you know?" Lizzy asks, confused at how quickly Bobby could figure that out.

"I figured that's why he's trying to hot wire the Mustang right now." He jerks his thumb to the window he'd just looked out of without taking his eyes of the newspaper.

"Shit! Are you serious!?" she near shouts as she rushes over to him, pushing Sammy into Bobby's arms. "Lou's gonna kill him!"

"If he don't kill her first for ditchin' him," Bobby returns with while taking a seat at the kitchen table with Sammy to read the article over so he can start figuring out what the hell happened to two good hunters that were really great friends. "What's been up with those two lately?"

"No idea," Lizzy answers in a huff while throwing her coat on. "Watch him?"

"Always," Bobby absently answers, bouncing the little boy while reading away already.

Lizzy runs out of the house and down the finally thawed out front wooden steps, the late May air getting warmer a tiny bit each day. She can see Sam's long legs hanging out of the driver's side door of the Mustang as he's hunched under the steering column and she knows he's already cut the wires to get the car started.

"Sam! Stop!" Lizzy screams as she runs to him.

He doesn't respond and keeps trying, the face of pure anger on him very worrisome.

"Seriously! Knock it off!" Lizzy yells some more and when she reaches him she grabs his arms and pulls as hard as she can to get him to cease fucking with Lou's prize possession.

When Sam quits trying, he stands up out of the car before walking with fury to the hood, opening it quickly.

"Lou will kill you!" she tries some more.

"I don't care," Sam says darkly back and takes a look. He may not know much about cars but growing up with John and Dean was enough for him to know something is off. He can see some disconnected lines and understands why the car wouldn't start at all. "Damn it!"

"Sam, Jesus! Stop for a fucking second and talk to me. Please!" Lizzy tries yet again and grabs his upper arm hard to get his full attention.

"They fucked with the car," he says with disappointment.

"They didn't want you to follow."

"You think!?"

"Hey! Don't fucking yell at me here! I had nothing to do with this!"

Sam clenches his jaw and stares her down, not sure what to say now. They don't trust him right now. He's so fucking handicapped with his broken brain that they thought of him as more of a liability than an asset on a hunt. He knew he was getting worse but it doesn't make feeling like being the ditched kid any better.

"It's still cold out. Come inside," Lizzy asks warmly of him, trying to guide him back inside. Sam doesn't budge and she sighs. "Sam, cut the shit and come inside with me. Please?"

The way she looks at him lessens his anger just a touch. "Did you know?"

"That they were going to ditch you?"

"Yes!"

"No," she answers truthfully. "I was under the impression that you were going until they peeled out and you marched out of your room pissed off and not in the Impala."

"I can't believe they did this to me," Sam shocks out but Lizzy huffs a laugh.

"I can," Lizzy responds lightly. "They're the same fucking person a lot of the time and they both love you so much it's fucking scary. I'm not surprised by this at all and neither should you be."

Sam sighs, knowing it's true.

"Come on, come inside," she asks of him, linking her arm in his and using her sisterly voice. "Read over that article with me and let's get going. The more we figure out before they get there the safer and easier this one will be. I want them home."

"So do I," Sam grumps. "So I can punch Dean in the face."

"Want me to get Lou for you, you know, since you're a guy and can't?"

"You'd do that for me?" He finally has just a drop of lightened humor in him now that he knows she wasn't in on it.

"Punch my annoying sister? Hell yeah," Lizzy laughs a bit before walking for the door with a slightly less angry Sam.


	4. The Simplicity of a Smile

"Hello there," Dean says lightly as he walks up to the Cedar City Police Department front desk, smile in place when he sees an attractive woman in her early thirties sitting there. Piece of cake.

"What can I help you with?" she responds without an ounce of enthusiasm and without looking up, flipping through file folder after file folder on a busy weekday.

"My name's Agent Hartman," he responds, taking out his badge and flipping it open for her to see. He expects her to look up to speak to him but she doesn't.

"Great but I believe I asked what I can do for you." She remains with her eyes glued to the folders.

"Uh… ok," Dean says putting his bunk badge into his suit coat pocket while put off by her attitude. If she'd just look up he could get her on his side easily. "I'm here to speak with the officer assigned to the case involving Wade Neal and Buck Shelton."

She sighs hard and waves her hand towards the seats in the lobby. "Take a seat."

"Ma'am, I don't have the time to spend sitting on my ass about this."

"Sir, I'm gonna need you…" she starts while standing up, angered by his insistence and his interrupting her day, but when she finally looks up at him she stops. Standing on the other side of her desk is a shockingly good looking man in a blue suit, looking at her with an expectant and impatient face. "Ha," she nervously lets out, one hand clutching a stack of files and the other bashfully tucking some hair behind her ear. She smiles, suddenly dropping her rudeness. "To stay right here while I call Officer Morris and let him know you're here."

Dean huffs a laugh and wears a proud smirk. "That'd be great."

As the woman calls Officer Morris' line, Dean leans against the tall lobby desk she's behind with an elbow casually propping him up. When she glances at him he winks at her and she instantly blushes.

"He'll be here in a moment, Agent," she tells him as she hangs up the phone. "Can I get you anything while you wait?"

"You got coffee?"

"Yes."

"Black. Please."

"I'll get that for you right now."

As she walks away Dean's not unaware of the way she sways her hips for him, purposefully giving him a curvy eyeful. He's definitely still got it.

"Hey," Lou comes into the lobby of the Cedar City Police Department and walks right up to him in her own grey, well-fitting pants suit. "You waiting for someone?"

"Officer Morris," Dean tells her, reaching into the candy dish on the secretary's desk. He pops one of the jelly beans into his mouth with confidence and sends a small, easy smirk Lou's way.

"What's that about?" she asks, nudging her head to gesture to his face. He's too smug. Something's up.

"You know, I keep getting older but the ladies just can't seem to help themselves," he says with an innocent shrug.

The eye roll Lou gives him might have set a world record. "Could you possibly love yourself anymore?"

He huffs a laugh, knowing he could. He puts out an air of confidence but it's all a charade for the most part.

"Here you go, Agent Hartman," the secretary returns and holds out the paper cup of cheap black coffee, her eyelashes batting and smile flirtatious.

Dean takes the drink with a grateful smile. "Aw, thank you…." He peers at the name plate on her desk. "Elizabeth." He turns towards Lou. "Would you look at that? Must be the name."

"Yes, all Elizabeth's just fall to their knees for you," Lou says quickly with sheer annoyance before looking at the secretary. "Look, Bethie, hate to burst your bubble but he's married."

While sipping his coffee he holds up his free left hand, silver band on his finger clear as day.

Elizabeth smiles. "What a shame."

Dean nods and stands tall. "Yeah… I knew I was going to disappoint the women folk with that move but… ow!"

"Don't be an ass," Lou gripes after smacking Dean up the back of his head.

"What the hell?"

"You deserved it," Lou says quietly before plastering on her best fake smile when an officer makes an obvious line towards them from down a hallway. "Hello," she greets him, her hand held out to shake his. "You must be Officer Morris."

"That's me," he responds and shakes her hand before turning to Dean.

"Agent Johnston," Lou responds while shaking hands. "This is my partner, Agent Hartman."

"Follow me," he gestures and starts back for his office.

As they go to follow Dean's stopped by a hand on his elbow. When he looks to Secretary Elizabeth she has a sultry look in her eyes.

"You're not the only one," Elizabeth says while holding up her own hand, her diamond ring and own wedding band on her ring finger. "And marriage doesn't mean you're dead."

"That how you see it?" Dean asks her with narrowed eyes, surprised at how forward she is with her cheating ways.

"Isn't that how you men want all of us married women to see it?" she smirks something flirty at him.

Dean's eyes go wide with surprise. "Well… ok, then," he awkwardly responds before walking away. He sips his coffee and smiles at himself. "Yup, still got it."

* * *

The cabin is quiet, nearly pin-drop quiet, as the three adults are strewn about the first floor of the cabin, each with their own assortment of papers, books, and laptops in front of them, while the infant among them is fast asleep upstairs.

Breaking the calm is a sigh of annoyance.

"I just don't get it," Sam says to the two others in the house. Once Lizzy talked him down from his anger, both seeing eye-to-eye as they both are grounded for their own reasons (partial-insanity and motherhood), they decided to do all they can to help from where they are. Dean is a father and he doesn't need to return in a body bag and Lou's damaged psyche isn't safe out in the dangerous world they live in. If he can't be by her side to help her then he'll do what he can from where he is.

"Don't get what?" Lizzy asks, not looking up from the book Bobby tossed at her an hour ago.

"What the hell has the juice to make two hunters, two really good hunters… do what they did to themselves?" he questions, still not past the whole idea in the least.

"Something mighty powerful, that's what," Bobby adds his two cents as he sits at an old square shaped table in the corner of the open first floor, the spot having become his new desk. He pulled the table away from the wall and sits behind it in a kitchen chair with stacks of books around him on the floor, the scene not unlike his lost study. "Wade and Buck were not suicidal. They weren't happy but they weren't about to off themselves."

"Sounds like most hunters out there," Lizzy comments and rubs her eyes while sitting back into the couch. "How powerful you talking, Bobby?"

"Well… let's run down the list of evil shit that can alter a person's mind and emotional state," he logics.

"Some lower level demonic possessions have been known to do that," Sam pipes up. "There was that one possession dad looked into when I was a kid. The demon picked people one at a time to possess in a small town, making them think their deepest, worst fears were coming true."

"Right… Sandusky wasn't it?" Bobby questions.

"Yeah, that was the time when we were kids that Dean snuck us out to Cedar Point while dad was busy hunting the thing," Sam nods and then smiles. He looks specifically to Lizzy. "He puked twice after riding the fastest rollercoaster in the park."

"Seriously?" Lizzy asks, surprised by the news. Dean doesn't seem like the weak-stomached guy.

"Oh yeah. I never let him live it down for the next year."

"Ok, kids. Focus," Bobby cuts in before he loses them totally. "Besides demons… I hate to say it but I might be tempted to think we're dealing with a deity."

"A god?" Lizzy repeats with fear.

"It makes sense," Sam laments, also feeling the fright of Lou and Dean going against a god right now.

"Ain't much else out there that has the ability to persuade a human mind to extreme points," Bobby adds on.

"And there's no way in hell Buck and Wade would kill themselves without being seriously persuaded."

"So… are we gonna go with a god for now?" Lizzy asks, looking for at least a direction to go in.

"I'd put all my money on it," Bobby nods as he pulls a couple books from the piles he and Lou retrieved a week back. "If I had any, that is."

* * *

"Well, I can tell you the case is pretty weird," Officer Morris says as he reaches his desk in the back corner of the big open room of the station. Other desks surround them in cubicles but Morris' is off on its own. Lou takes a seat in one of the two chairs opposite Morris while Dean eyes the donuts on the coffee station table.

"So we've heard," Lou answers before seeing Dean head for the food. She reaches out to swat his leg and he stops to look at her. She makes a face, telling him to sit, and it makes him think better of the snack. He takes a seat and listens with just his coffee.

"It was a gruesome one, Mister Neal and Mister Shelton," Morris shudders as he takes out a file from a metal cabinet. He slides it over to them. "I don't know what's happening around here but my stomach's done enough churning for a lifetime."

Dean's eye grow wide with that comment. "What do you mean?"

"Well, how many times do I have to get a call about a truly horrifying self-inflicted death before my stomach just gives up on me?"

Dean furrows his brow as he shares a confused look with Lou. "How many times have you had to respond to that call?"

Officer Morris looks at him with shock. "You came here _just_ for the Neal and Shelton case? None of the others?"

"What others?" Lou presses the man.

"This is the fifth time this has happened in my city. The only thing new about Neal and Shelton's case was that it was two suicides at the same time instead of just one," Morris tells them, reaching into his desk to pull out four other files. "Well, that and the state they were in."

"What does that mean?" Dean asks, taking the file on Buck and Wade. He opens the file and the pictures that look back up at him make him have to pull all his poker face strength together.

"It was horrific," Morris explains while Lou takes a peek at the file open in front of Dean and understands immediately.

"Oh my God," Lou remarks, knowing she appearing less than Feeb-ish with her comment.

"It was one of the toughest scenes I've ever come upon," the officer admits. "The theory is that they worked each other over pretty good before offing themselves."

"Why the hell would they do that?" Dean questions, looking up from the terrible photos out of necessity, the carnage too much to handle.

"Couldn't tell you," Morris says. "But people are offing themselves in the damnedest ways and I can't figure for the life of me why they'd all suddenly do such a thing."

Lou grabs the other files and starts flipping through them. A man that rigged his car to run himself over, a known loan shark that cut off his own pinky finger before shooting himself in the head, a teenage girl that wrote hateful things about herself all over her walls and then hung herself in her closet, and a man that drank himself to death with four bottles of plastic bottle-grade vodka.

"Jesus," Lou comments with worry.

"I know," Morris says and sits back, rubbing his head with stress. "I'm not sure if we as a city suddenly have a low self-esteem issue or… or maybe… something else." He looks at the agents with apprehension, unsure of how they'll feel about that idea as his chief already called him nuts.

"What would something else be?" Lou asks.

"A… a serial killer… possibly."

"Serial killer?" Dean questions with surprise. "These all _say_ suicide." He points to the folders.

"Because technically they were," he admits. "But how many completely absurd suicides have to occur before we come to realize this is not right? It's not normal?"

"It's unique, I'll say that," Lou says while studying each file over.

When both agents stay quiet and don't immediately shut him down he decides this might be his way to help his city.

"Could you do me favor… now that I can tell you aren't thinking I'm crazy for such a theory?" He lowers his voice a bit, checking around for his boss just in case. "Please don't say anything to my chief about that idea. He rejected it and told me not to look into the absurd thought when I tried to fight him on the issue. He wants none of it and thinks I'm trying to start some conspiracy theory or something."

"We can keep that on the hush-hush," Dean assures, knowing a monster would easily look like a serial killer to the unknowing person. It isn't a leap Morris is taking and lucky for them most of the police force in the United States doesn't think the way he does. They aren't as sharp he's assuming, as many of the members of the police force seem to have been on the dull side that he's encountered.

"And we're not going to rule out that theory, Officer Morris," Lou vows in order to stay on his good side. "I can promise you that. It clearly has some kind of weight considering the reoccurrence is so high."

"Yeah, we're more, uh… open-minded than most," Dean jokes a bit even though Morris won't get it. "Look, we want to get to the bottom of this. To do that we're gonna need full access to everything you know…"

"I'll have copies of everything made," Morris promises. "And anything new that comes up I'll share with you immediately. I don't mind working _with_ the FBI. With being the key word."

Dean nods, even though he knows he won't be letting Morris get too deep for his own good.

"Here," Morris hands over a card to Dean while Lou closes up the files and stacks them. "You call me anytime. If I'm not here then Elizabeth can connect you to me wherever I am."

"Great," Dean caustically bites, knowing he'd rather not have to deal with her again. She's hot, don't get him wrong. And she provided a lovely ego boost for him earlier. However, he's not the single man that would have already booked a date with her anymore. Instead he'd just rather avoid the woman altogether.

"And..." Officer Morris starts and sighs when he gets worried about what he wants to say. "If the FBI is here I have to assume you guys normally look into the abnormal. Right?"

"That'd be a damn good assumption," Lou comments.

To that Morris looks at her and smiles nervously. "Then… after what I've seen here and in these crime scenes, from people I knew that were citizens of my town and friends… please. Be honest with me. I can handle abnormal. And I can handle the truth behind a lot of unbelievable situations. I have gone through this in my mind so many times…" He takes a deep breath. "This isn't normal."

"You got that right, Morris," Dean comment heavily despite his light wording.

"So be honest with me," he asks of the two agents. "You came to this city for a reason. What the hell is going on?"

Lou and Dean pause there. For some reason they both trust this guy, can see that he wants to help from just the goodness inside him.

"Truthfully, we have no idea," Dean speaks honestly. "This is a new one. But I can promise you we'll do what we can to figure it out."

Officer Morris nods.

"Thank you," Lou nods at the pile of files in her hands as she stands up. "You've been incredibly helpful, Officer Morris."

She holds out her hand and he shakes it. "Kyle."

She nods as he smiles at her, feeling surprised by his sudden warmth. "Lou. And this is Dean." She gestures to him and Kyle shakes his hand formally.

"I appreciate you guys being here," Kyle tells them.

Lou just smiles and books it out the room, Dean following.

* * *

"This is some of the most fucked up stuff I have ever seen," Lou comments from the passenger seat, glancing over the file of the girl that hung herself, the pictures of her bedroom wall scrawled with horrid words all aimed at her. "This kid wrote the worst shit ever about herself on her own walls. What fifteen year old does that?"

"Bullying at its best," Dean comments. "Guess the epidemic is a real one."

"Yeah… but no one bullies _themselves_."

"Maybe she was depressed?" Dean thinks aloud. "I mean, teenage girls aren't exactly the most stable people." He huffs a laugh. "Thank God I was never a teenage girl."

"No… but you were a full grown woman once," Lou gives him a shit-eating grin.

Dean's face drops. "Off limits."

"Hey, you should be proud," Lou points out while reading over the profile on the girl.

"Proud of what?"

"You were hot."

"How would you know?"

"Lizzy showed me." Lou grins to herself as she counts it down in her head. Three… two… one….

"She fucking showed you that!?" Dean nearly shouts with anger, knowing Lizzy only took one picture during his cursed womanhood. He was in bed, nothing but a sheet covering his body… _her_ body.

"Of course she did, numb nuts!" Lou laughs.

Dean clenches his jaw and blinks slowly once, controlling the anger. "Awesome."

"It was!" Lou looks at him with wide eyes. "Dude, you were smoking. I'm kinda impressed."

That was not the reaction he expected. "You… smoking, huh?" he questions with curiosity.

"Definitely." Lou laughs and keeps reading.

"Really?"

"Blond bombshell, Dean. And you know it."

He nods, taking the compliment. If he had to be a chick at least he was a hot one.

"So stop fishing for compliments," Lou rebuts, thinking that's what he was doing. She then reads over something interesting. "There's absolutely nothing about this girl that would suggest she was depressed or that she hated herself. In fact… from the statements they took from friends she might have been in love with herself."

"What do you mean?"

Lou reads one of the interview quotes in her best teenage girl voice. "Gisella was super popular, like, the most popular girl at school. She was so pretty and really rich and everything all the other girls totally wanted to be. And her boyfriend was a senior and a football player. Her life, was like, so awesome." Lou eyes Dean to her side. "Why would the popular kid feel like shit about herself to the point of suicide?"

"You got me there," Dean answer. "And Gisella? Seriously?"

"The days of Susan and Ann are long gone, my friend," Lou says as she shuts the file. "So a girl kills herself despite her totally fab life. I don't get it."

"I don't get any of it," Dean adds in. "Like… ok, why the hell would a guy chug-a-lug four handles of bottom shelf vodka to kill himself? There's about a billion easier ways to give yourself the final sendoff that'd be a hell of a lot less painful. Why the theatrics?"

"Couldn't tell you," Lou concurs as she pulls the file to the top and opens it. She reads it over.

"What ever happened to a good old-fashioned bullet to the brain?" Dean thinks aloud as he drives to their motel. "Or sleeping pills. Go quick or nice and easy in your sleep. That's the way to go."

Lou pauses with his words. She looks at him with a furrowed brow. "You thought about this a lot?"

Dean realizes his misstep. He might be too comfortable speaking around Lou at this point to have let that one go. "No… I mean…. No. I, you know it hasn't been smooth sailing."

"I know," Lou nods, peaking at him out of the corner of her eyes and seeing his stern face as he watches the road.

"And sometimes…." He stops himself. "No. I'm not suicidal."

"Who the fuck would blame you if you were?" Lou says with a bite.

"My wife, for one."

Lou laughs. "You aren't gonna off yourself right now. Not with Sammy around and you would never do that to Lizzy. But… your life blows, Dean."

"Thanks," he snap back with sarcasm.

"But whose doesn't these days. Just saying, I would get it if you ever, you know, blew your brains out," Lou says far too casually for the topic. "It wouldn't be nearly as hard to figure out as these poor saps." She lifts the files slightly, speaking of the victims.

Dean turns to looks at her quickly. "Never become a motivational speaker. You'd suck at it."

Lou laughs at that. She then realizes how harshly she just put everything and forgot that Dean is still getting to know her. He might not get that she's harsh outwardly but really she cares.

"For whatever the hell it's worth to you," she starts, smiling at him. "I'm glad you never resorted to that."

"From the chick that once wanted me dead? I'll take it."

"Because if you die… I'm not dealing with Lizzy after that," she keeps joking while reading over the next profile. "This vodka guy was just a guy. Went to college, pledged a frat, got drunk on weekends… nothing seems out of place for him either."

"Alright… I'll take the drunk frat guy, you take the prom queen?"

"Sounds like a plan."

* * *

"Lizzy," Sam calls out after looking up and seeing the woman on the couch in her state. She's lying on her back across it fast asleep with Sammy lying tummy down on her stomach. He makes quiet noises, attempting to lift his head to look around while draped in a book his mother fell asleep holding. "Lizzy!"

She doesn't even move.

"She's exhausted," Bobby comments gruffly when he pears at her and sees what Sam does.

"Who wouldn't be?" Sam asks, getting up from his place at the kitchen table quietly. "Taking care of Sammy, worrying all the time about the rest of us, trying to take care of us, being married to Dean..."

"I'm worried about her," Bobby tells the truth, rubbing his eyes and sitting back in the chair behind his 'desk'. "She ain't gonna be able to keep this up much longer."

"I know," Sam whispers as he makes his way to her, smiling wide at Sammy when they make eye contact.

The little boy lifts his head higher and stares at Sam with big wide eyes as the man slowly removes the book from his back without waking Lizzy.

"Alright," Sam keeps a hushed voice, not looking to spook Lizzy. He very carefully picks Sammy up, moving slowly enough that mom never wakes. "I gotcha."

"Figured you might have a black eye by now," Bobby comments when he's impressed with Sam's guts. Lizzy could have woken and attacked whoever tried to take her son from her, being the mom and hunter that she can be and all.

"Me too," Sam quietly laughs, both men keeping it down to let her sleep. He pulls Sammy in so he's against his chest. "But I got lucky, right?" he asks the baby, tickling his cheek a little as he gets close to his face, having read that babies can't see clearly much further than a foot away at this point.

Right then Sammy flashes a big, bright, and toothless smile, it fading almost as quickly as it appeared. But Sam certainly didn't miss it.

"Oh my God," his face drops with excitement. "Oh my God, did you see that?" He looks to Bobby and prays he has backup on this one.

"Ha, well I'll be damned," Bobby says. "Guess he takes after his mom a little more than we thought."

"He's never done that before," Sam grins with pride, having gotten the first glimpse of something so big from his nephew. "That was amazing."

"And you better not let Liz know she missed it," Bobby says, nodding to the mother that just missed her son's first smile.

"Crap," Sam laments immediately. "She's gonna be so pissed."

"That's why we don't tell her about it." Bobby smirks and gives him a knowing look.

Sam nods, looking back at Sammy. He couldn't do that to Lizzy. She gets excited when Sammy just simply blinks nonetheless hits a milestone. She'd be so upset.

Sam goes in close to Sammy again. "We keep this between us, you hear? No telling mom. Ok?"

He kisses Sammy's cheek once and as he pulls away he can see the second smile on the little boy's face.

"That's... friggin' adorable," he laughs quietly, running a hand over Sammy's bald head. "Lizzy's gonna lose it."

Sam takes a seat at the kitchen, shifting Sammy so he's tucked into his arm. He lets the baby hold onto his finger while he starts to read, picking up where he left off.

"You know it might be easier to get work done if you put the kid down," Bobby suggests and nudges his head to the baby seat in the chair next to him.

Sam glances at it once, then looks down at Sammy as his legs kick away and his eyes roam around the room.

"Nah, I'm good," Sam says as Bobby ignores the dumb smile trying to break onto the guy's face.


	5. Beer Pong and Burn Books

"Missus Lowe," Lou greets as the front door of the sizable and well-kept house opens. The woman behind the door looks at her with surprise through pulled-too-tight eyes by an undoubted facelift.

"Yes?"

"Hello. I'm Agent Johnston," Lou holds out her badge. "Would it be alright if I came in and talked to you about your daughter?"

The woman stares at her for a minute, her collagen lips pouting and her fake breasts pushing up when she crosses her arms. "Why would the FBI need to discuss Gisella?"

Lou smiles apologetically. "My partner and I are investigating the… unusual circumstances around the recent tragedies. As you know, Gisella wasn't the only one recently to pass in an odd way. Learning more about your daughter and what happened would be a real help in trying to figure out what is going on and how to prevent others from finding themselves in this same situation."

The woman looks highly uncertain and not at all excited to speak of her deceased daughter.

"I want to help other parents. I don't want anyone else to have to go through what you're going through right now and I would hope you feel the same," Lou promises.

Without speaking, the woman waves her in and walks away from the door.

Lou follows and they settle into the large and ornate living room with far too much white for it to be truly functional day to day. Lou's starting to think the whole place looks like this.

"We were best friends," Missus Lowe says, grabbing a tissue from the box on the end table next to the couch she's on. "Just… she was my bestie. Forever."

Lou makes a face at the word bestie but bites her tongue and lets it slide. She needs info.

"That's nice that you could have that relationship with your daughter," Lou says, aiming to suck up and appeal to her clearly off style of mothering.

"Even her friends were like my friends, you know?" she keeps going, tears falling as she speaks. "They called me Tammy, my first name, and always said that they wished their moms were more like me."

"That's… special," Lou responds while her stomach churns. She doesn't like this lady at all. "Now, can you tell me anything about her relationships? Had any of them been bad or gone sour at all?"

"Oh no! Gisella was so popular," her mother cries. "She had so many friends, all cheerleaders mostly. She was looked up to by all the girls in school. They wanted to be just like her."

"Really?" Lou's not buying this whole thing at all.

"Of course. She was beautiful and everything they all wished they could be. And… she was dating Mitch Connors."

Lou shakes her head, not having a clue who that was.

"The head quarterback of the Cedar City Beavers." She says it with disbelief that Lou wouldn't know.

"Yeah… I… don't live here. Ma'am, are you sure there was no falling out with a friend or anything significant that had recently changed in Gisella's life?

"I'm sure. She just had the usual fights with her girlfriends. All teenage girls have their drama."

"True… but there was no one in particular that might dislike her more than normal? Or wish her harm?"

Tammy's face drops. "What are you saying?"

"I'm not saying anything," Lou assures. "I'm just covering my bases because I have to. Tammy, would you mind if I took a peek in Gisella's room? Just checked it out before I left?"

"Oh, well… alright, I guess," her mother suddenly looks a little nervous. "I haven't… the room is still a bit of a mess. We had the, um, accident cleaned but the rest…."

"Whatever shape it's in up there is fine," Lou assures, no longer needing to speak with the clearly delusional woman about her horrible sounding relationship with her daughter. "I've seen worse I'm sure."

Lou stands up and excuses herself to head up, shuddering as the plastic surgery maven wipes her very tightly pulled eyes once more. This place is her nightmare.

* * *

Walking up to the big mess of a house, beer cans and cigarette butts littering the front yard, Dean shakes his head. Yeah, he was right before. He missed out on the whole college thing. If he'd been able to go this is exactly the type of place he'd have ended up. Constant drinking, hot chicks, parties…

A frat house.

Walking up to the front door, the big wooden letters Chi Psi nailed into it, Dean knocks. As he waits he glances over the front porch. And empty keg in the corner, a broken beer bottle or seven, and a bra hanging from the flagpole. Yup. He's home alright.

He knocks again when no one answers but he can hear laughter and yelling from inside the house. Dean figures screw it and lets himself in.

"Dude! You suck!"

Dean's eyes grow wide as he hears the heated banter from the room to the right. Around a long table are roughly eight men, yelling and drinking at noon on a Thursday. They're so wrapped up in their activities that they never even heard Dean come into their house.

"Excuse me, gentlemen," Dean lightly yells over them all, walking towards the bunch a few steps as he reaches into his suit coat pocket.

"Who the fuck are you?" the shortest guy asks as the crew stops what they're doing, grow silent, and stare at the intruder.

"I'm the fucking Fed, man," Dean smirks and opens his badge to show them. He notices the one student on the end of the table farthest from him quickly drop and step on something. The smell in the room lets him know what it is. "Relax, guys. I'm not asking for I.D.s. And I'm not asking you to put out the joint, Don."

"Don?" someone asks and the group looks to Dean with confused faces, too young for the reference.

"Ok, tough crowd," he comments to himself and puts away his badge. "I came here to ask some questions about a William Graff."

"You mean Reek," one guy corrects and takes his baseball hat off, bowing his head in remembrance.

"I'm sorry, Reek?" Dean asks for clarification.

"That was his pledge name," the student tells him. "He was a senior this year. We loved him. He was our brother."

"Well… he wasn't your _brother_, brother…" Dean starts to say but the turn in the mood of the group lets him know he fucked up.

"Chi Psi brothers are brothers for life," one of them in a sweatshirt with his fraternity letters on it sharply scolds.

"Sorry… right…" Dean tries to smile. "Look, I was hoping I could check out his room and then maybe talks to some of you real quick. I just want to figure out what happened, verify that the reports are right."

"Yeah, whatever, man," one guy says. "Second floor, last door on the left."

Dean nods to the group ounce and heads for the foyer, marching up the stairs quickly as the ruckus in the living room continues on.

When he gets to 'Reek's' room he takes one look around and knows this won't be easy. The room is a pig sty. Clothing and food everywhere, empty beers, a few condom wrappers, and it smells like something along the lines of ball sweat, dirty socks, and something uniquely unidentifiable.

It takes a half hour to riffle through it all but he comes up with nothing. No hex bags or symbols. A bust. Time to interview people.

When he gets back downstairs he can see the frat boys still at drinking their lunch on a weekday. And now they have a game of beer pong set up.

He walks right up to the side of the table, the guys pausing their game with his presence.

"Oh, don't stop playing because of me," he easily says, hands casually in his pockets as he eggs them on. "I just need to talk to you guys a little and I'll be on my way."

"The Chi Psi brotherhood doesn't share its secrets." The guy with the clear level of confidence that he shouldn't have stands up a little taller with the warning he doles out.

"I never asked for the gay pledge stuff, dude," Dean comments easily, knowing he's probably said something wrong but doesn't care. "I don't give a crap if you elephant walked yourself right into being fake brothers or not. I'm just trying to find out what happened to your boy Reek."

"He killed himself," one of the brothers remind the fake agent.

"Sure… yeah. Sure he did. But here's the thing," Dean says, leaning forward with two hands pressed to the pong table. "You can either tell me what I want to know right now without problem so that I can deal with the mysterious way your brother 'killed himself." He uses air quotes around the word died. "Or… I could come back with the campus police for lack of cooperation with a member of the Federal Government and have them look into it. Now, taking just a preliminary peek around this pace with all its paraphernalia and underage drinking I have a feeling the dean wouldn't be too excited to know about all the bongs I found while looking into a _hazing_ report." He smiles at the group that looks suddenly pale. "So… what do ya say? Answer a few questions and get rid of me for good?"

The whole group seems to all turn their eye to the overconfident guy standing at one end of the pong table. After a few seconds of contemplative silence he speaks up. "We'll play you for it."

"For what? Answers?" Dean asks disbelieving.

"Yeah. One answer per cup sunk," the frat boy tells him as he tosses a ping pong ball at Dean.

After catching it Dean looks at the kid with surprise. "You're serious?"

"Super cereal, bro," he answer back, crossing his arms over his chest in challenge.

"Oh-ho-ho, are you gonna regret that, Booger," Dean warns fairly, smiling bright as he takes off his suit coat and walks to the opposite end of the table.

"What, they train you in beer pong skills at the academy?" he gets taunted right back.

"Yup," Dean goes with it, tossing his jacket aside and placing the ball on the table to roll up the sleeves of his crisp white button down. "And I really hope you feel like puking this afternoon because you're about to do a ton of it."

"Oh really?" the frat guy laughs.

Dean stares him right in the eye and stands tall. Without once looking at any of the cups set up on the other end he sinks the ball easily into the front one at the top of the triangle.

"Oh. Really," he answers back with pride and winks at the frat guy.

* * *

"Fuck… my… ass…."

Lou's shocked by the state of the room when she walks into Gisella's bedroom. Her mother didn't lie. The place is a mess. And disturbing.

All over the white and hot pink pained walls are scribbles of hate in what looks like dark black marker. Walking closer to read as the words the cover almost every inch of the wall are too small to read from a few feet she starts to see how disturbed this teenage girl was.

_Ugly bitch._

_ Where did you have to buy your clothes? Salvation Army?_

_ Slut._

_ Fat cow._

_ You'll be alone forever because no one will want an ugly pig like you._

_ Whore._

_ Food stamp bitch._

_ Poor skank._

_ No one likes you. No one wants you._

The ranting of true hatred continues on but Lou's read enough. She gets the picture. Pulling out her smartphone, she takes a few pictures of the walls just in case that comes in handy. She then peeks into the closet where Gisella hung herself.

It's clean. No clothing, no stains, no evidence that anything happened there at all.

So Lou does the next logical thing. She searches every nook of the place until she fines something that would help.

* * *

"Hey!" Lou says automatically with an excited face, a homemade scrapbook of sorts in her hand as she enters the motel room she and Dean have rented. The place is empty. But the Impala is out front. "Dean?" she shouts out.

From the other side of the closed bathroom door she can hear someone let out a satisfied 'ah' of sheer relief as an obvious stream starts hitting the toilet bowl.

"Gross," Lou shakes her head and tosses the book onto her bed farther from the front door. She then quickly pulls out a new set of clothing and sheds her business suit, looking to get more comfortable while Dean moans again with total release. "Bro, calm down in there. You sound like you got some truck stop whore in there with you."

"How do you know I don't?" he asks from the bathroom as he flushes.

Lou rolls her eyes as she unbuttons her white button down. He's a ridiculous person. She's stuck, out in the world, hunting… with the most ridiculous person she's ever met. She misses Sam a whole lot more all of a sudden.

"I feel so much better now," Dean comments as he opens the door of the bathroom, renewed after having drank enough beer to beyond fill his bladder. "I had to piss like a race horse… whoa! No!"

"What?" Lou innocently asks as she stands there in her bra and underwear, jeans in hand as she prepares to put them on.

"Stop!" Dean nearly yells and blocks her from his vision but holding his hands up. "Why are you doing that?"

"Because suits suck ass, dude," Lou laughs a little, legs threading into the denim legs and buttoning her jeans.

"I mean, why are you doing that _right here_?"

"Because this is my room," she answers with obviousness.

"It's my room too," Dean comments, walking to the closet while removing his own jacket to hang it up.

"And you were using the bathroom."

"So wait!"

"I'm sorry…" Lou fake-apologizes while looking at him, her t-shirt in one hand while she points at her breasts. "Are these making you uncomfortable?"

"Yours?" he says after only glancing at her. "Yeah. Really uncomfortable."

"Is it because they're so nice?" she smirks, pulling her red t-shirt that says _I'm Sorry for What I Said When I was Hungry_ on. "I bet that's why."

"Did you find anything?" Dean moves on, walking away from the closet.

"Few things," Lou nods, walking to her duffel to grab a hair elastic. "You?"

"I found beer," Dean says lightly as he reaches into the mini-fridge he stocked when he got back from the frat house.

"Don't you always?" Lou smirks and catches the beer he tosses at her before taking one for himself.

"Nah, I mean free beer," he clarifies, popping the bottle cap with his ring a she stands up straight. "And a lot of it."

"Go on?" she eyes him funny as she plops onto her bed, sitting in the middle of it Indian-style just like Lizzy always does. He has a flash of missing her. It's weird to be hunting without Lizzy and Sam. New partners aren't always easy to work with. Luckily so far so good with Lou.

"I played beer pong," Dean says as he swallows a sip of beer.

"Seriously?" Lou asks, disbelieving.

"Yup."

"So… you worked hard today," she sarcastically bites.

"I did, actually," Dean nods and leans against the dresser. "The frat guys were dicks but they sucked at pong luckily. They made me sink cups for answers to my questions."

"What? Why?"

"They assumed I'd suck at beer pong."

"That's awesome," Lou says to him, loving the idea. "Sounds way better than talking to fake plastic Barbie about her BFF forever daughter. You kick their asses?"

Dean just gives her a look to confirm that fuck yeah he did.

"Good man. So, what's the deal with dead Van Wilder?"

"He was the pledge master last semester," Dean explains his findings. "And not all of his pledges made it to initiation."

"Pussies," Lou laughs.

"No, not pussies. Dead. One guy couldn't hold all the liquor that they forced him to drink. Died of alcohol poisoning and then they all lied to the police so their frat could continue on."

"Holy fuck," Lou awes out. "That pledge died just like _our_ guy."

"Yep. And Reek sounds like he was a real upstanding gentleman… the kind that might have a guy die from alcohol poisoning under his watch."

"Excuse me?"

"What?"

"Reek?"

Dean laughs. "His pledge name was Reek. Guy musta smelled like ass or something…"

"So, wait a second," Lou puts it together. "Reek killed himself by drowning in cheap vodka…"

"After a pledge under his watch died from drowning in cheap vodka," he points at her when she gets it and shoots her a finger gun.

"Get the fuck outta here!" Lou says with wide eyes, grabbing the scrapbook on the bed next to her and tossing it to him. "That's what Gisella died from too I bet!"

"Drinking?"

"No…"

Dean watches Lou get off the bed and grab her laptop from her duffel before setting up at the kitchen table.

"The fuck is this?" Dean asks her as he looks at the cover of the book in his hand. "Burn Book?"

"You never saw Mean Girls?" she doubts as he computer fires up.

"I saw the porn based on it," Dean admits, putting his beer on the dresser and opening the book. "Those girls… ooh, they were mean." He smirks. "I liked them."

"It was a pretty good one," Lou nods, opening her browser to search the local papers.

Dean's face drops as he looks at her for a second. "You saw it?"

She rolls her eyes. "Women watch porn, dude. Any chick that says she doesn't watch porn is a lair. Don't trust her as far as you can throw her."

Making an accepting face as he looks at the pages, Dean answers, "Good to know. Whoa… this is some…" He starts to see the dark words and ugliness running through the pages. "Evil shit."

"That's what burn books are for," she explains, typing away. "Basically it's the bible for evil high school aged bitches. They put horrible things about the people they don't like into it for no good reason."

"Dude, listen to this," Dean says, walking towards her while reading. "Casey Poole. Ugliest bitch in the land. She's got jacked up teeth, a five head, and she wants my boyfriend."

"That sounded… weird…" Lou comments about Dean's reading, pulling up an article from the database.

"Like she could ever get someone as fine as Mitch. She better get her eyes off my man before I take her poor, chunky ass down." He closes the book when he's read enough already. "Jesus, girls are like this?"

"Only the worst ones."

"Then thank fucking God I didn't have a daughter." He means it. He's horrified that kids would do this to each other and now that he has one of his own… he hates this world.

"So take a wild guess at who was found hung from her closet last year?" Lou says, turning the computer screen to Dean so that he can see.

"Casey Poole," Dean reads from the headline of a Cedar City newspaper. The picture of a girl, roughly fifteen, smiles back at him. It looks like a school photo, the girl's happy yet crooked smile bright and nothing like the article's depressing words.

"What the fuck?" Lou sits back into her chair, leaning hard on the back. "So they're all dying in the same way that they caused someone else to die?" She then runs a hand through her hair. "How much you wanna bet that Buck's lopped the head off of plenty of things in his life?"

"And you know with him being a hunter that Wade's shot plenty of uglies in the heart. Bet the bullet was silver," Dean tacks on as they both look at each other, making a connection. "But check this out." Dean pulls out the files from the police station. He lays out the crime scene photos for her in order of date of occurrence. "You seeing what I'm seeing?"

"Jesus, dude," Lou awes and picks up the last attack picture after looking down the row. "Why would Buck and Wade's death be so gruesome compared to the rest?"

"Not sure," Dean shrugs, looking at the picture while absolutely hating doing it. The scene is simply bloody beyond necessity. They were beaten raw before they finally offed themselves. Seeing such a thing of pure carnage and unnecessary brutality, it hurts to his core knowing that under that pain and anguish is his good friends. "But there are no signs of Buck or Wade inflicting that damage on the other. Their knuckles should be shredded and swollen… but they're not."

"So whatever did this had a bull's-eye on them. They were a target," Lou looks up at him. "This thing… it wanted more than to just kill them. It wanted them to really suffer first."

"That's what I'm thinking," Dean walks away from the pictures and sits on the end of his bed, needing to take a breather. Yes, he's seen the worst of the worst. But it's Buck and Wade in the pictures. It's hard to view. "What the hell's going on here?"

"No idea, but it looks like something is making history repeat itself." Lou says while looking at Dean with concern. "What if this thing knew Buck and Wade were on to it and attacked? I mean clearly they came here for a reason and I'd bet my car that it's because of the strange amount of suicides."

"And their suicides were clearly more violent than the others."

"Exactly," Lou says quickly. "So… maybe Wade and Buck figured out what was handing out swift justice? Like some kind of supernatural judge?"

"Maybe… or maybe doling out justice like a trickster," Dean tosses the idea out.

"Aren't tricksters usually, you know, tricky about the justice they hand down?" Lou points out. "Like, doesn't it have humor attached somehow?"

"Usually."

"Well, looking at these deaths, I'm not laughing, dude."

"Yeah, good point," Dean furrows his brow with this as he autopilots his way into his duffel for his dad's journal.

"I'm calling home base," Lou says, pulling out her phone to call Bobby as that's her next logical step.

"Good idea… uh, wait," Dean stops her with worry. "You think we should?"

"Why not?"

"Sam's pissed at us. And Lizzy's _really_ pissed at me."

"Shit," Lou complains. "They're gonna be so mad." She turns her home screen on and can see that she has several missed calls and three texts from him. She ignored her phone every time it vibrated since she left the cabin because she doesn't want to deal with him right now.

"More than," Dean assures her, feeling equally hesitant.

"But we have to call sooner or later," Lou says with a heavy sigh.

They look at each other, thinking it over.

"Fuck it. Just do it," Dean says to her and gives up.

"You do it." Lou doesn't want the honors on this one.

"No."

"Come on!"

"You're his girlfriend."

"You're his brother. _And_ Lizard's husband."

"You're… newer. I outrank you," Dean decides. "You do it."

"Fuck you, douche bag," Lou mumbles and presses speed dial two on her phone while her heart pounds a mile a minute.

* * *

In the quiet room, Lizzy awake and reading, Sam at the table littered with papers and his laptop, Bobby at his 'desk' with stacks of books, and Sammy asleep in his carrier, Bobby's phone cuts through the silence when it rings.

The three look up from their research, glancing at each other with wide eyes. Lizzy and Bobby both know Sam's still fuming. The phone is on the kitchen counter next to the sink… and Sam's the closest.

"I got it!" Lizzy says and jumps out of her seat.

At the same time Sam scrambles out of the kitchen table chair and runs for the phone, his hand landing down on it first.

"Sam, let me answer the phone," Lizzy says to him, her hand on his immediately.

"No," Sam says simply and pries her hand off of his. He sees the caller on the I.D. and answers it immediately. "Lou."

"Oh shit, uh… hey, Giant," she stutters through obvious nervousness when he answers instead of Bobby. She was really hoping to just talk to Bobby right now. The guilt of ditching him on top of the guilt from killing Amy has made talking to him damn near impossible. "How's it going at the cabin? Sammy doing alright?"

"Don't talk about Sammy to deflect," Sam immediately calls her out. "What the hell, Lou?"

"I'm sorry," she apologizes and closes her eye. "Giant, I am _so_ sorry…"

"If you really felt bad about ditching me then I'd be there with you right now."

It's silent on the other side when Lou doesn't know what to say at first. She takes a deep breath. "I care about you too much to let you in on this case right now. Your head is a total mess…"

"I can handle it," Sam sternly cuts in. "I have_ been_ handling it. And you and my brother had no right to make this decision for me."

"Maybe we didn't," Lou agrees a bit, knowing how pissed she'd be in his shoes right now. "But we did what we did and you can't change it now. Might as well deal with it and work with us on this instead of make this fucking guilt I'm feeling any worse."

"You don't think you deserve it?" Sam challenges.

And Lou exhales hard when it feels a little like getting punched in the gut. Amy. Ditching him. Amy. "Honey, I am fully aware that I deserve it. I deserve every fucking ounce and then some. I just want to get through this case and come home. We can figure this out then."

And that stops Sam right then. She does feel remorse. He doesn't doubt that for a second, not with the tone in her voice. That was totally heartfelt. "Fine. What do you need?"

A sigh of temporary relief and she dives into work. "We don't know a whole lot but we have found a common thread through the victims."

"What is it?"

"They're all killing themselves in the same way they've offed other people."

Sam immediately pulls the phone away from his ear and puts it on speaker while sitting back down at his table. "Every victim is a murderer?"

Lizzy and Bobby's ears perk up as they listen.

"No, well… not intentionally I don't think," Lou continues on. "Like this one high school girl, Gisella. She hung herself in her room after writing terrible things about herself on the walls. Problem was that not all the things she wrote fit her. Like she wrote poor bitch but she wasn't poor. I then find out that she tormented a girl in her school by saying these very same things to her and the girl hung herself in her room months ago."

"So this Gisella was a bitch to a girl, the girl hung herself, and now Gisella did the same?" Lizzy sums up with surprise.

"Yep," they hear Dean chime in, his heart pounding a little as Lizzy speaks. He knows she's got to still be crazy angry with him leaving. "And a frat douche that got a pledge killed by drinking too much killed himself by chugging four handles of vodka. Uh… hey… L."

"So something is making people hand out their own eye-for-an-eye justice?" Lizzy asks, ignoring her husband's hesitant greeting.

"Something like that," Lou says, sharing a sorry expression with Dean on their end. "You guys know of anything that can do that?"

"Tricksters are known for doling out people's just desserts," Sam suggests.

"Nah," Dean tosses it out. "They use humor and ain't none of this funny. This is just down right tragic."

"Hm. Juice like this?" Bobby thinks aloud. "Able to turn peoples' minds against them… this is something powerful and it makes me think my first idea wasn't such a bad one."

"What was it?" Lou asks.

"A god," Sam answer. "We've been searching for gods that might make this happen."

"I'm willing to admit you're probably right there," Dean agrees easily. "You catch wind of any guilt gods?"

"Well, I found Osiris," Lizzy says, pulling a specific book out and placing it on the table by the cell phone. "Egyptian god of judgment… but even if he weighs guilt he tends to do it after death. Once a person dies he helps decide if they take the escalator up or down basically. I was thinking… what if he changed his ways? We've seen baddies suddenly alter their ways before…"

"Nah, these people are dying _from _guilt, not being sentenced after death because of their guilt. Gods don't change their M.O.s too often. Toss that one out," Dean says, Lizzy's face looking frustrated with how quickly he dismisses the idea.

"It was on the right track, though," Bobby nods at her when he can see her frustration. She just smiles sadly at him, everyone in the conversation feeling the disconnect between the two.

"I found Chu Jung," Sam pipes up. "He's the one responsible for punishing those that break the laws of the heavens…"

"And there's about five others just like it from other systems of belief," Bobby laments in warning. "We're gonna need a whole lot more info than what we've got to pin point it but I'm sticking with the god idea."

"It does seem to be the only thing that would make sense," Lou agrees completely. "Alright, so… back at it in the morning. I need a couple hours before I go check out the bodies in the morgue."

"Me too," Dean comments back rubbing his eyes. "We'll get back at you when we know more."

"Ok," Lizzy nods as she listens to their conversation ending. "Um… Dean?"

And the beeping over the phone line lets her know the other end hung up already. She closes her eyes and bows her head with sadness. It's been so long that they've been at such opposite ends of anything. He didn't want to talk to her. Maybe she was too harsh on him before he left. He was just trying to help people and honor two very good men. She overreacted.

"You alright?" Sam asks and pulls her out of her thoughts. Lizzy looks at him and can see the concern on his face.

"Yeah," she forces a smile that she's well aware won't fool him for a second.

"Not believing that for a second."

She sighs. "I'm ok. We just… we had a fight before they left. I didn't want him to go and he went."

"It should have been just Lou and I."

Lizzy shakes her head no. "It should have been none of us. We need to stop doing this. Dean and I are parents. You have your own issue. So does Lou even if she's gotten better. And Bobby's been doing this forever." She swallows hard and puts her head in her hands. "It's just been getting to me lately. I don't get why we have to keep doing this. Ever since Sammy came into our lives I… I don't want any of this."

"Lizzy, you haven't wanted this for a long time," Sam reminds her.

"But it's different now," she says, her voice cracking as she fights for composure. "Before, if Dean… didn't make it home, then I, I'd have to move on. I don't know how I would and I couldn't when it actually happened before… but at least it was only me that would have to get past it. Now Sammy's a part of all this. He can't lose his dad. What would I do?" She presses a hand over her mouth as her eyes close. "I refuse to let Sammy grow up anything like you two did. We have to get out before he loses a parent and picks up a fucking gun. Until we get out of this I will live my life in constant fear. Sammy deserves so much better."

She rubs her eyes with stress as Sam gets up and moves his chair right next to hers, sitting down again. He pulls her in tight with an arm around her shoulders and Lizzy leans into him, Sam and Bobby exchanging understanding looks with one another.

"I shouldn't have yelled at him," Lizzy admits, sapping comfort form Sam like she always knows she can. "I just… I yelled when all he wanted to do was help people and finish Buck and Wade's last hunt. I just got so fucking scared…."

"And you should've," Sam says to her as Sammy starts to fuss upstairs. Sam nods for Bobby to go get Sammy and the older man gets right up. He never minds caring for that little boy, especially in a moment like this. "Lizzy, it's fine if you're scared. You have every right to be."

"I'm so fucking tired of it though. I just want to live and not be scared. It should be so simple…."

"We pulled the short straw," Sam tells her easily enough. "It hurts like hell that we can't be like everyone else but that's just the way it is. We're doing fine. We're going to get through what we have to get through and we'll all be fine."

"I'm so sick of being lied to," Lizzy says, sitting up and backing away while looking at him. "Please, just don't lie. I need one person to be honest with me and stop giving these worthlessly hopeful lies. We're fucked, aren't we?"

Sam's forehead wrinkles when he doesn't know what to say.

"He's gonna be a hunter, isn't he?" Lizzy asks Sam for an ounce of honesty. "Dean will never get away. He won't be able to. It's in his fucking blood. And Sammy will eventually end up just like you and Dean."

Sam wants to lie so badly it hurts his soul… but he can't. He can't lie to Lizzy, not after all this time and not after all she's been to him.

"I don't see it ending well as of right now," Sam admits. "But I don't know what tomorrow brings. I mean, Lou shouldn't be alive and I should be in a Cage. We never saw the bad things coming at us but we never could've seen the good things that have happened coming either. I mean, maybe the Leviathan can be dealt with, and if they can we'll figure it out… but if they can't be or if something else falls in our laps…." He takes a deep breath. "I want a good life for Sammy and for you and Dean. I really do."

"But?"

Sam can't actually say it. Instead he just shrugs, knowing he's crushing her.

She inhales hard and nods. This is it for her. This is her excepting the fate laid out for her family.

"Thank you," Lizzy says through her fears. "Thank you for being the first honest and realistic person willing to admit these things. I needed to hear it. I needed someone to just _let me_ hear it."

"You're not gonna stop fighting to find a way out now, are you?" Sam asks with serious worry.

"God no," Lizzy laughs through the sobs. "Never will. I don't know how."

"Good," Sam nods and smiles small. "Because if there's ever even a sliver of a chance…."

"I'll find it," she assures him. "No doubt about it."

Sam nods and smiles a little wider. "That's the Lizzy I like to hear."

"Thanks, coach," Lizzy comments back with annoyance for his corny moment. She pushes him lightly in the shoulder and rolls her eyes. "Shit, I should see what's up with Sammy…"

"He's fine," Bobby grumbles despite the slight smile on his face as he walks into the room holding Sammy. "Just lying there awake, looking for some attention."

"He hungry you think?" she wonders of her son as she clears her throat, putting herself together in order to be a good mother.

"I only assume the answer is always yes to that," Bobby laughs a little. "You alright to feed him or you want me to do it?"

"Thanks, but I got him," she responds, getting out of her seat and missing the warmth of Sam and his understanding the second she walks away from him. She reaches for Sammy and takes him from Bobby. "Hey, sweetie," she gently says to him despite her upset. The second she looks down at him she can see him in the future, his green eyes bigger and hardened with a Colt not unlike his father's in his full grown hand as he aims it at whatever ugly bastard he had sought out, and she shudders. "I'm, uh… I'm gonna feed him upstairs and take a break…."

"Take your time," Bobby nods, letting her know it's ok.

Lizzy makes her way upstairs and settles onto the bed in her room, the only piece of furniture in there aside from the crib. She sets Sammy up and gets him eating before closing her eyes, leaning back against the headboard.

"Fuck, Cassie," she starts to talk aloud, not knowing what to do or who else besides her deceased guardian and true friend to run to in this situation. "Why did you have to be so fucking stupid? Why? We just wanted to help. Why wouldn't you let us help you?"

She looks down on Sammy as he eats, his eyes looking around just like always.

"He'll be a hunter now. A fucking hunter." Lizzy shakes her head at the scary thought. "Castiel, you stupid ass. You promised me you'd be here. You promised. How the hell are we supposed to stop anything coming for him without you? How? You're stronger than us, you had our backs. And… if you're not around how am I supposed to get Dean out? I know who he is. I know that he says he wants out, and part of him does… but that other part of him can't separate himself from it. He needs to hunt. He does. He has to. I just can't… I can't. I can't sit at home every week and wonder where he is and wait to find out he's dead. I can't do that. Sammy… he deserves better."

Running a soothing hand over his bald head, Lizzy never takes her eyes off of Sammy even when the tears start to fall.

"If Dean's not gonna stay home and Sammy's fate is still gonna come and get him… how am I supposed to deal with that by myself? How do I handle this without you?"

The silence washes through the room, making sure she gets how alone this life is going to leave her.

"I need you, Cass. I hope you hear me because _I need you_." Lizzy closes her eyes. "If you ever feel like showing up on the doorstep with some lame explanation about why your back that I'll never buy… I promise I won't question it. I won't care. I just need you back."

She then concentrates hard and tries to find him, feel his grace. There's something there, some small spark far off in the distance. It connects to her but that could be any angel really. She always felt them, could sense them coldly from far away but Castiel always burned brighter. He was obviously and warm. She doesn't feel that warmth. Just a little flicker that she can't trust.

"I'll keep trying," she prays to him. "I'll keep searching now and then. If you're out there…. I'll feel you. I will. You've never truly let me down or given up on me, not on purpose. I won't give up on you either."


	6. Indecent Proposal-ing

"This couldn't have waited until morning?" Dean complains as he trudges down the hospital hallway.

"Nah," Lou says as she pushes through a set of double doors, the sign next to it with an arrow pointed in the direction they walk indicating the morgue up ahead. "Can't sleep anyways."

"I sure as hell could," he complains, rubbing his weary eyes. He'd drank just enough cheap whiskey to pass out around eleven that night, choosing a dreamless blackout over the thoughts of Lizzy's anger at him and his guilt for leaving… along with his fear of the idea that he might need hunting in his life no matter how smart it would be to get out. Lou's decision to wake him at midnight so they could head out to do work was not welcomed.

"Hey, we deal with our guilt in different ways," Lou shrugs. "You sleep to forget… I work to distract."

"So why couldn't you work and I sleep then?"

"I need backup," Lou says simply as she opens up the morgue door, gesturing for Dean to enter before her. "Ladies first."

He shoots her a face before grumbling, "More of a lady than you'll ever be…"

Lou laughs quietly to herself as they walk up to a man sitting behind a desk that's lost the battle against sleep.

"Hello?" Lou quietly says to him, not looking to scare him awake.

The man, middle-aged and dead to the world with an elbow propping him up on the desktop, doesn't even flinch.

"Excuse me?" Lou tries again and reaches out slowly to him, pulling one of the sides of his headphones away from his ear. "Hello?"

The man jumps a foot and his eyes fly open, staring at the small woman with utter shock.

"Jesus H. Christ!" the man yells out, a hand over his heart as it beats far too fast. "Holy hell!"

"You alright, man?" Dean half laughs at the guy's reaction.

"I didn't mean to scare you like that," Lou says with an apologetic smile. "You couldn't hear me with the headset on…"

It's then that they can hear the sounds coming from the computer speakers after the morgue attendee freaked out and yanked the headphone cord out. The moans and obscene slapping sounds fill the room.

"Oh," Lou says, realizing what the man had been watching before falling asleep.

"Nice," Dean comments quietly, smirking as the man scrambles around his desk to grab the computer mouse and shut off the sound.

"I…. I just…. Wow. I'm sorry about that," he starts to stutter out, sitting still once the sound is silenced. "That was… embarrassing…."

"Nah, man. It's fine," Dean brushes it off and looks to put the poor guy at ease.

"I, uh… my wife and I haven't… you know… in a while…."

"Dude, it's totally fine," Dean tries again. "I'm a married man myself. I get it."

The man relaxes a little, sighing with relief.

"You know, if you got the extra cash you should really look into a subscription to Busty Asian Beauties…."

"Alright, big boy," Lou stops Dean there as she knows he could get a little long winded on the issue and pats him on the chest twice, focusing on the morgue attendant. "Hi there. I'm Agent Johnston. This is Agent Hartman. We would like to take a look at two bodies you're storing here. Wade Neal and Buck Shelton."

They simultaneously pull out their FBI badges and flash them.

"So… it's dress down day?" the man comments lightly as he starts typing the visit into the log on the hospital server.

"So… it's jerk off to porn at work day?" Lou bites right back.

"That's fair," the morgue worker ends his inquiries there, knowing she makes a good point. "Could I just see your badges, please?"

The hunters hand their I.D.s over and their information is put into the program.

"Alright, numbers seven and nine," the guy informs them after a moment and hands back the badges.

"Thanks…" Dean says, pausing to read the name plate on the desk. "Millicent. Really?"

"I'm the night guy," he explains. "Millie's the usual, salaried, daytime morgue director."

"Gotcha," Dean nods and knocks on the desk with his index finger knuckle twice. "You have a good night, Millie."

Lou follows Dean through the double doors and into the morgue, the wall of square metal doors shining when they turn on the light.

"I fucking hate these places," Lou says as she shivers from the cold. Being as small as she is she's always freezing anyways. This room is like an ice box.

"No one likes them," Dean comments easily, handing over a pair of rubber gloves to her. "So suck it up."

"Fuck off," Lou mumbles and puts on her rubber gloves, watching Dean do the same.

"You take seven, I got nine."

They both open their designated metal doors and pull out the stretchers at the same time, the bodies side by side.

"Son of a… bitch," Dean lets out quietly and turns his back for just a second. The sight of the two men is gruesome and deplorable. Hands on his hips he takes a deep breath and turns back around, sucking it up like he just told Lou to. When he faces Buck and Wade he catches Lou's blue eyes staring at him on the other side.

"I can do this alone, Dean."

"Nah, I'm ok," he completely lies in return.

"Are you sure? Because I…"

"Shut up and let's get this over with," Dean quietly responds. He can still feel her eyes on him as he looks down on Buck. "Stop. I'm fine."

Lou rolls her eyes and moves on. She knows he's not fine because he said he was fine. But she can't really do much about the situation to make it better so they move on and get the job done. The quicker the better.

Luckily Lou got Buck. He was the worse of the two. His head was nearly severed from his body, just a little bit of skin at the back of his neck remained attached. His eyes were still open to make matters even worse, his gaze now hollow and frozen with true fear.

"You don't have to look… but Buck looks scared shitless," Lou tells Dean as she exams his head, turning it away from Dean so he wouldn't have to see the horrified expression. "If he was going to kill himself then why would he be terrified?"

"Because he wasn't doing it on his own free will. He didn't want to die," Dean says, his voice coated in sorrow as he keeps his expression steadfast. He checks the bullet hole in Wade's chest and something strikes him as weird. "I'm not even convinced they did it to themselves like the reports say."

"What makes you say that?" she wonders, looking at all the cuts, bruises, and damage all over Buck's body as it lays there motionless and cold. They were put through the ringer.

Dean pulls his gun out of the back of his pants. He discharges the clip, puts the safety on, and holds it in his hand. He then angles it at his own chest. "If I were to shoot myself in the chest it wouldn't be head on. It would be angled, right?"

"Right," she agrees, seeing the awkward angle Dean makes as he tries to aim at his own heart.

"Wade's bullet wound is straight on," Dean says, pointing to the hole. "It's more like it was aimed _for_ him. It's more like…."

"Someone or thing else did it for him," Lou says in understanding. She then looks down at Buck. "Honestly, I have no idea how a man cuts his own head off. I saw the crime scene photos. Even with the machete tied to the kitchen chair like it was, even if he fell on it perfectly, I'm not seeing it working this well."

Dean steps back and licks his lips once while thinking. "They didn't kill themselves. No fucking way."

"I'm right there with you," Lou says, her hands raking through Buck's hair as she looks for something, anything that would give the killer away.

Dean looks down Wade's body again, seeing the damage done that just wouldn't make any sense. "Who beats the shit out of themselves before killing themselves anyways?"

"None of the other suicide cases did that," Lou once more agrees as she pulls her fingers out of his hair with something in her grip. "The hell is this?" She looks at the small, scaly bit between her index finger and thumb. "Snake skin?"

"Why would Buck have snake skin in his hair?" Dean asks with confusion.

"Not a clue," she answers, grabbing a plastic bag from a nearby table. She puts it in and zips it closed, knowing this could be very important to their case. She pockets the snake skin and then takes a step back to check Buck out overall. "Hey. What the hell is this? A burn?" She lifts his arm and under his forearm is a patch of raw, singed flesh.

"It burned him?" Dean asks with surprise.

"Guess so," Lou says while putting his arm down. She then lifts Buck up by his side and rolls him to check his back. "Oh, fuck me."

"What?"

"Come and see."

Dean marches over to her and gets an eyeful of the striping across his skin.

"What the fuck is that?" Dean asks, fright in his voice to see the damage.

"My guess?" She puts Buck down. "Whip marks."

"Whip marks?"

"Yeah."

"_Seriously_?"

"Yes. Seriously," Lou responds, pulling her gloves off.

Dean walks swiftly to Wade and checks him. Same whip marks on his back also. "What the hell?"

"I have no idea…."

"No, seriously, Lou. What the hell?" Dean asks with wide eyes, peering at her with honest loss. "What the fuck are we up against here?"

She looks at the man, the worry on his face as the great Dean Winchester is handed something he's never seen before. Even she was sure she'd seen everything after Purgatory. This… it's unsettling to discover a new evil after all this time.

"I don't know yet but we'll figure it out," Lou says to him, nodding at his hands to get him to take his gloves off. "And we'll kill whatever the fuck this nasty bitch is. Dean, for what they did to your friends… we'll kill it dead. I'm not heading back until we do."

Dean nods and tosses his gloves into the nearest trash. He then looks at her as he makes his way for the door, his eyes filled with true anger for the state his friends are in. "I call dibs on pulling the fucking trigger."

* * *

"Ah…"

The first sip of that first beer at a bar is always the best. At least that's what Dean thinks. And on a night like tonight, with guilt coursing through him, that feeling can't be beat.

Granted he already had a small buzz going from before, when he'd decided to black out tonight instead of wallow in guilt and upset. Whenever things with Lizzy felt off he couldn't sleep well. It always irked him too much to. But Lou had to go and ruin his hard earned sleepiness with her impatience to head to the morgue.

So now he drinks alone, Lou back at the motel shockingly not in the mood to tie one on with him. She must deal with her guilt differently. She doesn't drink through it. Taking another hefty sip he has to wonder which way is more effective.

"Agent Hartman!" a delighted voice calls out his alias of the week and when he turns around he has to fight back the physical cringe he needs to let out.

"Elizabeth," Dean greets, his voice low with slight disappointment. She walks right up to him and takes a seat in the stool beside him at the dive bar.

"Aw, you remembered my name," she says flirtatiously.

"How could I forget?" Dean counters, knowing the coincidence wouldn't let him. "That's my wife's name."

"Really?" she questions, he eyes lighting up instead of showing any disappointment like Dean thinks they should.

"Yep." He sips his beer and looks at his reflection in the mirror past the liquor bottles along the back wall of the bar.

"Maybe you have a thing for the name then, hm?" she plies, looking for an in or a compliment.

"Nah, just her," he says to the mirror, letting his eyes glance at the woman in the reflection. She's wearing a red shirt with a deep v-neck, showing off her ample breasts. She also wears a beautiful smile, all white teeth and happiness. Her eyes are a dark brown and filled with something he used to see on chicks in bars all over the country when he was younger. And her long hair, a bright blond, is in waves running down her shoulders.

"I see," she nods, not getting the hint enough to back off. She instead settles in and when the bartender comes around she requests, "Jameson. Rocks."

Dean has to laugh to himself as he picks at his beer label.

"What? You never seen a girl drink whiskey before?" Elizabeth asks him.

"No, no… I, uh… it's just funny because that's what my wife drinks," he tells her as he smiles at his beer and thinks about the woman that's mad at him back in their temporary home. "Jameson is her booze of choice. Always."

"Well… I like her already," Elizabeth smiles at him, this time getting Dean to look at her in the eye. "You know, talking never killed anyone. And just a conversation… I doubt that would end your marriage. Am I right?"

Dean stares at her for a quick second. "Look. I've been all over this country and I know bad news when I see it. Sister, you got bad news written all over you."

"I'm bad news?" Elizabeth asks, sounding more innocent than she should.

"You propositioned me at the police station."

"Right… I did, didn't I?" she ask with a guilty smirk.

"Yeah, you did… and now I see you again at a bar, without your wedding rings that you had on earlier might I add, and I have to think to myself… bad fucking news, Dean." He gives her a knowing look as she covers her bare left hand with her right.

"I… I should never have said that to you back at the station," Elizabeth admits. "It was unprofessional at best and… you're married. I shouldn't assume that all marriages are shit just because mine has been lately."

Dean doesn't really know what to say to that at first. It was an overshare. "No marriage is perfect." He shrugs and drinks down some more beer.

"Mine is very, very far from it," Elizabeth says in return. A glass is placed in front of her and she thanks the bartender before downing half her whiskey in one go. She then puts the glass down and sighs. "You ever just feel… trapped? Like the person you married is not the person you _thought_ you married? Or like maybe they were just wrong for you?"

Dean glances at her and huffs a quick laugh. "Sorry. Can't say that I have."

"Really!?" Elizabeth's wide eye stare at him with disbelief.

"Really," Dean answers with certainty.

"You've never regretted marrying your wife? Even for a second?"

"No. Never." He isn't lying.

"Wow!" Elizabeth awes. "You're that elusive one-percent, huh?"

"If the ratio is that small then I'm far more scared for this world than I thought," Dean tells her, looking once more at the bar mirror to avoid her.

"Tell me about it," Elizabeth laughs, not fully getting his joke of course. "And the worst part is that we all go into marriage thinking we are _that_ one-percent. We're the special few. We're gonna make it…. And then… you don't."

"Wish I could give you some advice on this one but I don't know about it," Dean says quickly, swigging his beer and praying she'll leave so he can avoid playing marriage counselor and get back to his drinking before last call.

Elizabeth gets quiet after that, her mind looking for new things to say to the very handsome man to her right. "You ever have kids?"

"One," Dean quickly responds. This is one subject he's never afraid about speaking of, even to Adultery Annie.

"Really?" she smiles at him warmly for the first time, no flirtations meant.

"Yeah. A boy. His name's Sammy," Dean tells her, pulling his phone out of his pocket and pulling up a photo of his wife and son that Lizzy sent him a few days before while he was out working on the car. It's her face side by side with Sammy's as he's wearing a onsie that says _I'd flex but I like this one piece_. He knows he's getting too comfortable with sharing pictures with strangers but pride will change a man.

"Oh my God!" Elizabeth coos out immediately and snatches the phone from him. She looks over the picture with an enormous smile. "He's so precious! And the shirt!"

"Yeah," Dean grins wide. "L's been finding stuff for him that says funny shit. Her favorite is the one that says 'My daddy can kick your daddy's ass'…." He starts to say it was her favorite before it was lost to the house fire but he cuts himself off.

"He's just so handsome. Looks just like you," she smiles at him before looking back. "And now I get it."

"Get what?"

"Get why your marriage is so good. Just look at her," Elizabeth awes a bit, seeing the beautiful woman in the picture.

"Yeah… she's a looker," Dean says with total bragging confidence as the sudden need to jump in his car and drive back to Whitefish hits. He doesn't even care if she's angry. "She's alright, I'll say that much."

"You love her," Elizabeth says more than asks. "Like, you _really_ love her. This is the real stuff."

"I certainly hope so," he answers back.

"No, you do. I can tell," Elizabeth confirms it for him and suddenly her expression turns from delighted to let down. "I can see it. I've gone about this all wrong."

"Gone about…? Oh, no. Elizabeth, it's fine. You know, you're a good looking chick. I think most guys would have a hard time turning down a good time like that," Dean says, eyeing her form over once. She is hot.

"Not what I was talking about," she says with a straight face. She lifts her glass and kills the rest of her whiskey. She then hands Dean's phone back over and when he reaches to take it she grabs onto his hand.

"What are you…?" Dean starts to ask but her brown eyes widen suddenly. She grins something devilish and let's go.

"It's alright, Dean. I gotcha now," she tells him calmly and gets up out of her barstool.

"Got me?" Dean asks, watching her walks for the door. "What do you got?"

Elizabeth simply looks over her shoulder at him, smiles brightly once, and then heads out the door of the dive bar.

"Hey!" Dean calls out to her, unsettles at best by the encounter. "Hey!" He jogs to the door but when he opens it the street is empty. She's long gone.

Outside in the mild night, looking both ways several times, Dean's at a total loss while the dread in his gut starts to take root.

"The fuck just happened?"

* * *

"I think we got a problem," Dean says as he bursts through the motel door at just before two in the morning.

"What!?" Lou screams awake, her knife from under her pillow in hand instantly as she jumps to her feet, her heart racing. "What's happening!?"

"Fucking relax, it's just me," Dean says without fear as he pushes the door shut behind him and then takes his jacket off.

"What the fuck, Dean!?" Lou shouts at him immediately. "With the way my fucking brain's been!?"

"You haven't had a nightmare in forever," he shrugs.

"Doesn't mean I'm cured! You think waking me up like that was a good idea!?"

"Something happened…" Dean excuses and tosses his jacket aside.

"Yeah! You almost died! I was gonna kill you!" She points the big knife at him with fury.

"You didn't," he shrugs again, trusting her far too much as he rummages through his duffel by the door. When he stands up, John's journal in hand, he freezes when a big hunting knife sails through the air and stabs into the motel wall a few inches to the right of him. "What the hell was that!?"

In a flash Lou is standing right in front of him, grabbing the lapels of his canvas jacket and burning holes through his eyes with her hard glare.

"Don't you _ever_ underestimate what Purgatory has done to me," she warns him with a low, frightening voice. Dean can see that animal she became in that place as she looks at him with pure anger. "You hear me!? I will _not_ feel guilty when you're dead body hits the floor if you do. That'll be on _you_, not _me_!"

"Jesus, Lou," Dean says, fear in his tone as he looks down at the much smaller woman. "I'm sorry, alright? I thought you'd gotten better."

"Not better enough," she informs him, pushing him away from her before walking around him. She yanks the knife out of the wall, twirls it expertly in her grip, and heads back for her bed. "What the hell is the problem that you had to wake me up like that for?"

"I just had this thing with a chick down at the bar."

Lou snaps her head around to him and her face drops even further if that's at all possible. Her old insecurities about him come flooding back with his words. "What did you do?" she asks in a low, angered voice.

"Uh, I should have seen it coming," Dean says while shaking his head. He sits on the edge of his bed between the two in the room and opens John's journal in his lap. "Should have known she was no good. The signs were all there."

"Dean," she says his name with an even fire. "What the _fuck_ did you do?"

Dean looks up at her standing just a few feet away with a confused face. Then it clicks. "Dude, come on! I didn't cheat on L."

Lou doesn't look convinced as she crosses her arms over her chest.

"Sit your angry ass down and listen to me, would ya?" Dean says with impatience for her reaction. She doesn't move. "Sit down."

Lou takes his advice this time with a guarded attitude. She sits on her bed facing him and listens like he asks, praying he's going to give her a good story and not one she'll have to murder him for. She keeps her big knife by her side just in case.

"OK, remember Elizabeth from the cop shop?" Dean asks, as he switches his focus between flipping through the journal and looking at Lou.

"No."

"Come on, the hot chick from the front desk? She was hitting on me?"

"Ok, yeah. Yeah, alright. I'm with you," Lou says as she remembers the woman.

"Well, after Indecent Proposal-ing me at the station she just happened to walk into the bar I was at tonight."

"Coincidences do happen," Lou points out.

"Not to us," Dean comments, scanning page after page. "So she tried to get into my Levi's again and, keeping in mind that I am a changed man and all." He looks right at her with a challenging expression. "I refused again. She then started talking about her shitty marriage and I said I couldn't help her there. She then asked if I had kids. I said yes, she got the picture that I was happy and she said something really weird."

"What'd she say?"

"She said she'd 'gone about this all wrong'."

Lou just blinks once. "She went about getting you in bed all wrong?"

"I don't think that's what she meant," Dean shakes his head. "She then grabbed my hand, made a weird face, said she 'got me now', and then bounced."

Her face wrinkled, Lou says, "She got you now… how?"

"I don't know. That's the weird-ass part," Dean tells her as he picks up the journal and plops it into Lou's lap facing her. "But I think she read me."

"What do you mean read you?" Lou wonders as she looks down on the chicken scratch-covered page. It's an entry done by Sam, not John.

"I think she, you know, mumbo-jumboed into my head and read me," he says while grabbing a beer from the mini-fridge. "Last time someone did that to me it was Rina."

"Rina? The gyp chick Sam was banging?" Lou asks as she read the entry.

"You know about that?" Dean asks with surprise, popping the bottle with his ring.

"Lizard told me."

"Of course." Dean rolls his eyes and takes a sip.

"So you think Elizabeth is a gypsy?"

"No," Dean answers. "But I think something is clearly up with her. Rina's read me before and she had the same look as Elizabeth did when she was done. And the way she literally just disappeared after… not good."

"She disappeared?" Lou asks with wide eyes.

"Walked out of the bar and I went after her. She was long gone in seconds flat."

"So… Elizabeth is in on what's happening in this town? Or do you think that she's a whole different situation on her own?" Lou has to wonder.

Dean thinks it through quickly. "I have no freakin' clue. But I do know where I'll be in…" he checks his watch. "Five hours."

"Where?"

"The police station. Speaking to Elizabeth."


	7. Da Vinci Code

"Good morning," Dean greets loudly as he walks into the police station early in the morning, Lou walking behind him. "I'm Agent Hartman. This is Agent Johnston."

"Good morning," the young man behind the front desk says in return.

"Isn't there usually a woman behind this desk?" Dean questions, eyeing the man of no more than twenty-five sitting where Elizabeth usually is.

"She called out sick," he smiles without excitement. "So now… I'm here for the day."

"Called out sick, huh?" Dean echoes, glancing at Lou. "What a coincidence."

"What do you mean?" the guy asks.

"She was the one I was looking for," Dean answers and pulls a card out of his wallet. "What's your name?"

"Mitchell."

"Well, Mitchell… if you hear from her again today, maybe she checks in or calls out for tomorrow too, you mind giving us a call? Maybe letting us know where she is?"

"Uh… sure…" the guy answers skeptically. "I can't give out her address or anything, that's illegal…"

"I know that," Dean assures, already prepared to have Sam hack into the department software to retrieve it. "Just call us if she contacts the department."

"Will do, sir."

Both 'agents' turn to head for the front door, Lou quietly asking, "Call Sam?"

"You know it."

"Agents!" both Lou and Dean hear someone yell as footsteps can be heard quickly coming down the hallway. They turn to see Officer Morris running towards them. "Wait!"

"Kyle?" Lou asks, seeing the worry all over his face.

"Can you two come with me please?" he says in a more hushed tone once he reaches them, grabbing Lou's upper arm and pulling her with him.

The hunters exchange very concerned faces as they get lead quickly to the nearest interrogation room. Once inside, Morris locks the door and shuts off the observation speaker, making their conversation contained within the walls of the room.

"Kyle, what's going on?" Lou tries again, seeing the frantic face he has on that shows his inner fear.

"Whatever the hell is going on in this town… it got to me."

"_It_ got to you?" Dean questions, observing Morris' state. His eyes are sunken and tired, he's sweating profusely, and the wrinkled fear in his face is strong.

"Yes!" Kyle yells at him, his hands on his head with panic. "I, I, I've been up all night and all I can think about is… is…"

"Is what?" Lou questions calmly after walking slowly to the spooked man, her hand on his arm to show her concern.

"Dale Denton." Kyle closes his eyes and drops his hands to his hips.

"Who's Dale Denton?" she keeps trying.

"He's the man I wrongly killed while on the job," he explains to her.

Lou can see the pain and remorse all over him so he lightly ushers him to sit at the bare table in the basic room. He does so, hands folded on the tabletop, and he sighs.

"It was an accident," Kyle says with closed lids as Lou stands next to him and listens, Dean doing the same while leaning against the corner of the room. "I was taking the late night shift alone three years ago. I got a call to look into a possible B and E. When I got to the house everything looked just fine. When I circled around to the backyard I could see a figure trying to get into a back window. I drew my gun and told him to freeze. When he looked at me I couldn't see his face because he had a hoodie on that hid him. I asked him to freeze again and he wouldn't listen. He reached into his pocket as he walked towards me and… and, God help me, I shot him."

"You did the right thing, didn't you?" Lou tries to assure him.

"I guess… but he wasn't reaching for a weapon. He was reaching for his wallet. He lived there and wanted to show me his license to prove it. He was trying to get into his own house because he lost his key that day."

"That was an honest mistake, Kyle," Dean pipes up, seeing how this accident could happen. "The guy didn't listen to you…"

"The guy had a family," Morris says, his head in his hands now. "He had a wife and a two-year-old daughter. I took that little girl's dad away from her."

"But you did your job," Lou tries again.

"What does that matter!?" Kyle says to her, opening his eyes to look right at her. The tears are already running down his face when he does. "I'm the one that ruined that family! I tore them apart! Who gives a shit if I did the right thing or not!? It still feels wrong as hell!"

Right then Kyle reaches to his holster at his hip. He pulls out his police issued handgun and aims it right at his gut.

"I've dealt with this guilt for three years," he tells them. "I can't do it anymore."

Lou dives for his hands. She tackles Officer Morris onto the ground and forces the gun to aim away from him. The gun goes off when Kyle squeezes the trigger a little too hard and the bullet imbeds itself into the cement brick wall.

Dean then jumps in and pulls the weapon from his grip. "The hell are you doing!?"

"I don't want to deal with this anymore," Morris tells him, all out crying now. "I can't do this. I deserve to die."

The door opens to the interrogation room, the police chief looking in. "Morris, what the hell!?"

"Sir, we're going to be bringing Officer Morris with us," Dean explains quickly as Lou gets off of the man and Dean hauls him to his feet. "He's in no shape to be working here today."

"I'd say. Did you discharge your weapon?" the chief asks with sheer surprise.

"That was a… little misunderstanding," Lou explains handing the chief a card as Dean cuffs the officer with his own handcuffs. "We will be in touch but if you need anything you can reach us on this line."

"Um, ok… I guess," the chief says with confusion, watching the trio leave the room and exit the station with high bafflement. They move fast before anyone can come to their senses and stop them.

"You shut your mouth until we get to our motel, you hear me?" Dean says low and dangerously to Morris as the head to the car. "We can help you but you gotta get control of this."

"I want to die," Kyle tells him with certainty.

"Yeah, not on my watch," Dean assures and puts him into the back of the Impala. Once he slams the door shut Lou looks at him over the roof.

"The fuck do we do now?" she wonders.

"Get him safe and call the research team."

* * *

"Alright, no killing yourself, huh?" Lou says with a grunt as she finishes off the last knot. They brought Kyle to their motel room and immediately tied him to a chair so that he couldn't inflict any harm on himself. It's the only thing they can think to do.

"He good?" Dean asks, phone to his ear as the other line rings.

"For now."

"Dean?" Bobby's voice is heard on the other end of the line.

"We got a situation here, Bobby," he says right away.

"What a surprise. Lay it on me."

"We think this thing is infecting people with guilt…"

"Or ramping it up!" Lou adds in.

"Right," Dean takes the correction. "Or it's just making the guilt people are already feeling way more powerful. That's how it's getting people to off themselves."

"How do you know this?"

"Well… we have an Officer Kyle Morris tied up in our room right now so that he won't shoot himself in the chest like he did a vic about three years go."

"I deserve to die…"

"Shut up, Kyle. You don't deserve to die." Dean sighs heavily before speaking into the phone again. "So what you got on guilt infections or strengthening? Or guilt being used to make people suicidal?"

"Shit," he can hear Lizzy says off away from the phone as Bobby must have it on speaker. "Hot Shot, I might know what this is."

"I'm all ears then."

He can hear pages flipping. "And you might be in deeper than you want to be. This isn't a thing. It's things. And very powerful things."

"Come again?" Dean asks with confusion.

"The Furies," she says to him and starts to skim the pages. "They're three sisters from Greek and Roman mythology. They each have their own specialty."

"Is guilt one of them?" Lou asks as she comes to stand next to Dean once he puts it on speaker.

"Um, not specifically, no…" she starts to explain while she searches for the right paragraph. "Ah, ok… so they have names. There's Allecto, the Fury of endless and unceasing pursuit. And there's Magaera. She's the resentful, jealous, and grudging one. And then there's Tisiphone. She's the punishing and avenging one. Together they each use their own specific focus to hone in on the guilty, most specifically those that murder. Killing is what gets them going the most, especially those that have killed their own kin. That gets them wicked pissed."

"So three ancient gods?" Dean asks with disbelieving worry. "That's what you think we're dealing with?"

"Yeah," she says with a voice coated in worry. "They are known to use fire and whips as their weapons. They also are supposed to have snakes woken into their hair, putrid black skin, and they're supposed to be pretty nasty looking hags… but that could just be legend."

"Would explain some stuff," Dean comments to himself, recalling the burns, whip marks, and snake skin found on Buck and Wade.

He can hear her sigh with concern. "Baby, maybe you should come home. Call someone else in. This is sounding seriously dangerous."

"I can't ditch these people right now, L," Dean says, looking at Morris in unsaid promise. "I can't just leave, not with how in it I am. Just find me a way to kill them and Lou and I will be just fine. We can get home as soon as possible."

"Yeah… ok," her very shaky voice responds, her fears loud and clear. "Um, I'll look into it. Just… please. Please be careful…."

Right then he can hear his son fussing a little by the phone. He can picture it, Lizzy flipping through an ancient book with one hand and Sammy in her other arm, his head on her shoulder. He has to wonder if she did that on purpose or not.

"I'll be home soon as long as you get me a way to off these bitches," Dean promises. "We've got a good guy here in trouble. He needs to go home to his family just like I do. Bet on it that I'll be home in a few days. You guys just get me some answers. Lou and I will be here watching Kyle. He deserves that much."

"Always told you that you were a good man," she says in her sad tone. "I just never thought that I would see it as a downfall. I'm just worried about you."

Dean closes his eyes, knowing the others in the cabin are listening. "Hang in there with me, L. I'll be fine. Go find me a weapon."

Lizzy stays quiet after that, only a soft, shaky exhale is heard. He's really killing her being away right now.

"Dean, I'm gonna suggest the usual wards for your room but gods are more powerful than the average stuff we use."

"The place is already salted," Lou says loudly so they can hear her. "And we got some hex bags hidden around just in case they'll help."

"That'll have to do," Bobby answers back. "Lock down, hole up, and sit tight. We'll move fast on this one."

"Will do, Bobby," Dean answers back. "Oh, and Sam! You there?"

"Yeah," he can hear Sam answer.

"I need you break into the Cedar City P.D. database and get me anything you can on an Elizabeth... uh," he pauses. "Kyle, what's Elizabeth's last name?"

"Smith… I think."

"Find what you can on Elizabeth Smith. Especially where she lives."

"You think some woman at the department is in on this?" Sam asks him.

"Maybe. Just let me know what you can find out."

"Will do," Sam answers and Dean hangs up the phone.

"Alright. You heard the man," he says to Lou. "Arm yourself to the teeth and lock down. And they'll get back to us when they figure this shit out."

* * *

It's been a quiet half hour. Once more the entire cabin is reading while Sammy sleeps in his carrier on the couch. Bobby is at his 'desk' and Sam and Lizzy share the table.

While trying to read, the shaking of the table gets to be too much for Sam to handle. He reaches over to Lizzy on his left and clamps a hand down on her knee to stop it from bouncing.

"Sorry," Lizzy says, her tone sad and concerned.

"It's fine," Sam half-smiles at her. "I just couldn't read."

"I'll try to stop," she says, her face wrought with true worry.

"You won't, though," Sam huffs a small laugh, knowing she'll just keep doing it, and she barely responds, keeping her eyes down on the book in front of her. "Lizzy, it'll be alright."

"Yeah," she answers very unconvincingly. Sam can see the wrinkle in her brow as she tries her best to hold it together.

"Hey, chin up," Sam says nudging her with his elbow. "We'll figure this out soon."

"I'm sure we will," Lizzy just nods as her eyes blink a few times.

She's shutting down and Sam doesn't blame her. Instead of dwell and cry she's focusing in. Maybe it's for the best since this problem will only be solved when they can end the Furies… if it is the Furies….

"I should have known," Bobby says suddenly getting out of his seat with his current big old book in his hands. He places it down on the table between Lizzy and Sam and points to a depiction in it.

"A branch?" Sam asks, looking at the hand-drawn illustration. In it there are three naked women with snakes woven in their hair all dramatically wrapped around one frightened man, their expressions angry as they attack. The man has his hands wrapped around a tree branch that is being plunged into the stomach of one of the Furies.

"An olive branch," Bobby clarifies, pointing to the leaves and fruit on the branch. "These gals are Greek and Roman deities. The olive blanch has always been known as a symbol of peace and the Furies… they don't really believe in peace."

"So… you really think it's that simple?" Lizzy asks with clear skepticism. "Just a piece of olive tree wood and poof, an ancient and powerful god eats it?"

"When has it ever been that simple?" Bobby questions her. "But at least it's a start. We got something and that's what matters."

Sam points to the paragraph under the depiction. "You happen to read Greek?"

"Nope, that one never really grabbed me," he jokes back, knowing he's mastered enough of enough languages to usually pass as hunter master.

"Hm, let me try something," Sam responds and takes out his phone. He zones in on the paragraph and takes a picture. He them imports it into a translation app on his smart phone.

"Huh…. Nice," Lizzy smiles while watching him, always feeling a slight tinge of pride when Sam gets to show off his quick problem solving skills.

"Don't say that until it works," Sam mentions as he pressed the translate button and the app does its thing. Soon enough a new paragraph in English pops up. "Got it."

"Go, Sam-I-Am," she says with a grin as she smacks his arm, impressed yet again by his problem solving skills.

"Fortunate are the ones that do not encounter the Furies," Sam reads. "Women of ire and fire, if you have done wrong they will find you. Your soul will burn and rot for past wrong doings. Peace and purity may save your life if you encounter the trio of miserable fate."

"Wow, helpful," Lizzy says sarcastically. "So what now?"

"Wait a minute," Sam stops and gets up. He grabs a clear glass from the sink and fills it with a little bit of water. He walks back to the table and hunches over the book, placing the glass of water over the picture. "Check that out."

The water in the glass acts as a magnifying glass and allows the three hunters to see the small symbols carved into the branch that is being stabbed through once of the Furies.

"What's that?" Lizzy asks, pointing to the more obscure one.

"It's the Chi Rho," Bobby says instantly. "It's a Greek symbol of two letters together. It's the first known Christian symbol. Supposed to be a sign of goodness… purity."

"And the dove would be peace," Lizzy says, pointing to the carving of a dove next to the Chi Rho. "Shit. Peace and purity may save your life. An olive wood stake with these carvings… you think that's it? That's the answer?"

"Best one we're gonna get," Bobby answers, grabbing his phone to call Dean back.

* * *

"The hell am I gonna get olive wood in Cedar City?" Dean immediately complains when he heard the solution Bobby and the rest figured out.

"Not too sure," Bobby responds over the phone. "But this is what we got."

"And you're certain this will work?"

There's a pause on the other end.

"Bobby?"

"I'm pretty sure it will," Bobby admits, not totally sure. "Look, my books never lied to me before. I don't trust much in this shit world but my books… I trust those."

"You trust a picture that much?"

"Haven't you ever read the DaVinci Code?" Bobby muses a bit. "Artists leave clues all over their work when it comes to mythical stuff. I wouldn't be tellin' you two idjits to go for this if I didn't think it'd work."

Dean closes his eyes and sighs. "Just making sure I come home, Bobby."

"Lizzy'll kill me if ya don't," Bobby promises.

"That's probably true. Ok."

"Sam have anything on that Elizabeth chick?"

"She doesn't exist," he hears Sam say off in a distance before the phone is handled. Sam's voice gets louder when he says directly into the phone, "That's not her real name."

"What do you mean?" Dean asks.

"It means that the only Elizabeth Smith in Cedar City is eighty-seven years old. This woman you've been talking to isn't named Elizabeth Smith."

"Son of a bitch," Dean complains as he's become sure she's a part of this. "It's her."

"What is?"

"One of the Furies. She has to be… which means she's onto us."

"Well… be careful, Dean," Sam says back. "They're pretty vicious. And they smell guilt like a dog smells fear."

"Fucking awesome."

Dean ends the call and looks to Lou, sitting on her bed eyeing Kyle as he dwells in his own personal panic.

"Please…" Officer Morris' pathetic voice pleads. "Just untie me."

"No fucking way," Lou says to him. "You'll kill yourself."

"I deserve it!" Kyle shouts at her.

Lou stands up immediately and smacks him in the face when she can see the delirium coming. "No you don't! Knock it off! People make mistakes, Kyle!"

"I ruined that family's lives."

"Jesus Christ. Listen to me…."

"Don't bother, Lou," Dean says to her as he cuts her off. He grabs his wallet from the nightstand along with his keys. "He's not gonna change his mind until we off these bitches."

"And how do we do that?"

"With an olive wood stake," Dean says with a pissed off smile, knowing that the task of finding one will be rough.

"Oh, that's it?" Lou rolls her eyes and crosses her arms over her chest.

"A stake?" they both hear Kyle's quieter voice ask with curiosity. "Like a wooden stake kind of stake?"

"That'd be it," Dean tells him.

"We found a few at the crime scene," he explains. "They had these symbols on them…."

"One was a dove?" Dean asks with wide eyes.

"Yeah. And one looked like some kinda weird letters or something."

"Buck and Wade figured this whole thing out," Dean shakes his head with remorse and washes a hand down his face. "Alright, how do I get them?"

"They're filed away in the evidence room at the station," Kyle tells him. "If you let me go I can bring you there and open it for you."

"Nice try," Dean refuses the offer and walks over to the suddenly suicidal man. He reaches for the keys hanging from the officer's utility belt. "I'm sure I can find it."

He quickly runs to the bathroom and puts on his suit before heading for the door to return to the station.

"Hey, uh…" Lou calls out and walks over to him, pulling him aside and speaking quietly. "You better be careful out there."

"I'm always careful," Dean brushes off the caution.

"Dean, seriously. This thing thrives on guilt."

"And?"

"And you have even more of that shit than I do!" she harshly whispers to him. "These evil chicks find you and you'll have the barrel of a gun in your mouth so fast…"

"I'll be alright. You watch him… and yourself. I'll be back soon." He rushes through the door and gets into the car, feeling the fear of his vulnerability. It had already crossed his mind how at risk he and Lou already are. This is no good.

* * *

"Mitch, my man," Dean greets as he walks up to the lobby desk of the police station for the second time that day. "You heard from Elizabeth yet?" He drums his hands on the desk surface.

"No," Mitchell answers, surprised to see the agent again so soon. "Uh, Agent Hartman?"

"Yeah?"

"Is Officer Morris ok?" he wonders, looking concerned. "He's a good guy and the way you guys took him off... I was hoping he was alright."

"He's doing just fine," Dean promises the worried man while lying. "We just needed his help on some things. He's doing his part."

"That's good," Mitchell answers back, only calmed a little.

"Hey, uh, which way is the evidence room?"

"Back of the building. Take that hallway," Mitchell points the way out for him. "You'll see the door."

Dean smiles curtly and heads the way he was shown. Around the corner he can see the door labeled Evidence Room just ahead. Checking around him carefully, sure that no one can see him, he tries a few keys before getting the right one and slips quietly into the small lockup.

Inside there are three rows of metal shelves, all packed with file boxes. Each one is labeled with a date and name or names. Following the organized system Dean quickly finds the box labeled with the names of his two friends and the date they passed.

Once pulled from the shelf, he places the box on a set up folding table along the back wall of the room. He opens it up and pulls item after item out, each individually enclosed in an official plastic bag and labeled meticulously. He finds everything one would expect, from weaponry to clothing samples spattered with blood.

But then it gets personal

Buck's blood-stained watch he was never without. Wade's trusty hatchet and revolver. The Phillie's hat Buck never once took off in Dean's presence. Wade's wallet, complete with his favorite picture of his wife whom he lost when she was just thirty-one.

"What the hell?" Dean quietly says to himself when he never comes across any wooden stakes of any kind. Just a mini armory, a lot of occult references and talismans, and personal affects. Morris said they'd be there, that he'd seen them in evidence… but they aren't there now. "The fuck did they go?"

Dean quickly packs up the box again and puts it in its proper place, sure to swipe the most important and meaningful items from both Wade and Buck before he leaves. There's no fucking way in hell he's letting them stick around. Once he figures this whole thing out he'll burn their things to be sure they get to move on and rest like they deserve to just in case the men thought otherwise in their final moments.

Leaving the room and locking it behind him, Dean turns around to head back down the hallway he came from but stops abruptly when he's greeted by a woman coming his way.

"Hiya, Dean," Elizabeth smiles at him from just a few feet away, her body language confident and relaxed as she stands tall while eyeing him. "Now, what were you doing in that room just now? That's for _real_ officials only, not fakers."

"Where the hell have you been?" Dean asks with anger, the sight of the odd woman triggering him immediately.

"I believe I asked you a question first." Elizabeth just keeps evil-grinning at him as her eyes light up an unnaturally bright red. "Looks like you're figuring it out," she mentions when she reads his expression.

"What the hell do you want from these people?" he asks her, taking a step back while reaching for his gun.

"Oh, sweetie pie, don't bother. That gun won't leave a scratch on me," he promises him, hands on her hips as she stands there.

"I bet those stakes that are missing from evidence would though," Dean says, tipping her off that he does get it. "Where're those sisters of yours, huh? You the youngest? They send you out to do their dirty work?"

He eyes fare up even brighter and her face is dark and angered. With lightning fast movement she pushes him into the door of the evidence room and pins him there, her forearm pressing into his neck and cutting off his air partially.

"The fuck do you know about my sisters?" she asks, her voice razor sharp as she moves in close, their noses practically touching.

"Nothing…" Dean chokes out. "Just… that they're… fugly as… fuck…."

Eyes widening with his defiant ways she presses all the way down onto his throat and cuts his air off completely with her inhuman strength. "How _dare_ you say that to someone like me, you little shit? They were my sisters!"

"Were?" he barely gets out.

"Yes _were_, and you know it! Your friends took them from me!"

Clearly from the way Dean's face changes, shock still showing through his panicked expression as he can't breathe makes her think he wasn't aware.

"You weren't working with them," she assumes and pulls her arm away without backing up. She presses her hands into his chest to keep Dean in place as he inhales hard, coughing and gasping to get much needed oxygen. "You didn't know they killed my sisters, did you?"

"No," he struggles out.

"What, did you just arrive in town?" she scoffs.

"Yesterday. My friends are dead."

"Hunters," she huffs a laugh. "A horrid bunch but at least I respect your loyalty to each other."

"Thanks," he scratchily returns with, his throat hurting.

"So what, you're here to finish what those assholes started?" she asks him, pressing a little harder and making his ribs ache a bit. "Kill the evil sisters that are just doing their job by making sure horrible people pay their dues?"

"Pretty much," Dean grunts out. "None of those people deserved to die."

"Eye for an eye, Dean," she grits out angrily. "They kill… they deserve to be killed."

"Well, I beg to differ. Guess that's just what makes me human and you a raging bitch."

Elizabeth laughs a little. "Is this where the big strong hunter kills me?" She knows she has him by the balls so to say. He's trapped without a weapon to harm her. She can overpower him easily.

"Right now? No," Dean admits, knowing she has the clear upper hand. "But I will."

"What makes you so damn sure?"

"Oh, I've gotten out of much worse situations than one pissed off, ancient god, sweetheart. Don't you worry about me." He winks at her and knows he pushed it too far. He's supposed to be making sure he gets home, not making his situation even worse.

"I'm not worried about you, Dean," she tells him, a hand running down the side of his face. She doesn't miss the sheen of sweat on his skin. He's nervous. "I can handle you."

"You sure about that?"

"Quite," she says, once more leaning into him uncomfortably close. "Because you'll be too busy offing yourself to even _think_ about me."

She presses her lips to his, kissing him while passing her charms right onto him. He can sense it all over, the sinking, dark feeling seeping into his being, spreading through his body and making his mood completely change.

When she pulls away from him and smiles once more, looking into his green eyes as they start to darken with depression as she watches, her first accomplishment is done.

"You have plenty to be guilty about, Dean," she tells him, his face drooping with utter sadness already. "More than most I've ever come across. I figured, a good looking guy like you with an overconfidence problem… it'd be infidelity. But shockingly it wasn't. It's just a whole lot of other things. I don't think you're about to last all that long."

She leans in and kisses his lips one more time, lingering longer this time.

"Yum," she grins devilishly as she lets him go. She turns away from him and walks down the hall, leaving him to his own guilt-ridden devices. "That one was just for me."

He watches her walk away while wiping her smudged lipstick.

_It's all my fault._

His mind starts turning on him already.

_I shouldn't be here. It was supposed to be me._

The thoughts come at him fast and furious as he leans his weight into the evidence room door, his back against the cold wood. He can feel it in his gut.

_You killed him. You killed him. You killed him._

"Shit," Dean says, fighting back with all the strength he mentally has in him and pushes off the door. He marches down the hallway quickly, knowing Elizabeth is long gone just like last time he saw her.

_It should have been you. What's dead should stay dead._

He needs to get to Lou. Now.


	8. What's Dead Should Stay Dead

"What have I done?" Kyle whispers to himself, his body rocking as much as the rope tying him to his chair will let him. A few minutes ago the officer took a turn for the worst. He's been mumbling the same few phrases over and over again, his mind descending too quickly for Lou to keep up or attempt to stop it. "I killed him. What have I done? I ruined that family."

"Kyle, you've _got_ to fucking stop," Lou complains, her head starting to hurt with the constant repetition. She presses her fingertips into her temples on both sides, making circles while closing her eyes. She's been trying to read articles on her laptop while sitting on her bed, figuring the more she knew about the Furies the better, but the damn guy won't let her.

"I did it. I ruined that family. They're a mess because of me," he keeps right on going.

The motel door opens and Lou sighs in relief as Dean walks into the room in a rush.

"Oh, thank fucking God," Lou rejoices while looking at him yank his jacket off. "Stuck here any longer with this rambling and I was about to do Kyle a favor and pop a cap in his ass just for some peace and quiet."

"Please?" Kyle's eyes light up. "Lou, please…?"

"Shut up, Kyle," she dismisses, her brow wrinkling with concern as she watches Dean systematically pull every weapon he has off of his person. He tosses his Colt, box cutter, two knives, lock pick, switchblade, and even his belt and shoes with shoelaces onto the bed in front of her as she sits Indian-style on it. "What is this?"

"Take it all away," he says, fear in his eyes as he looks at her hard, pointing a shaking index finger at the items. "Lock it up somewhere safe. Don't let me near any of it." He then pulls his necklace over his head and adds it to the pile.

"We're in the middle of a hunt and you wanna go commando?" Lou asks with disbelief. The pit in her stomach grows when she realizes he's empty handed after his weapon run. "Dean… where're the stakes?"

Dean shakes his head.

"You're freaking me out, dude," Lou tells him, her voice dropping with his unlikely actions. "What happened out there?"

"S-she… she found me."

"Who?"

"Elizabeth," he says to her simply. "She got to me. She's the last one."

"Last one _what_?"

"Fury." His expression wrinkles with loss and desperation. "The others are dead."

"How?"

"Lou, I don't know…"

"_How did they die_?" she emphasizes, needing an answer before the obvious shut down happens.

"Wade… and, and Buck did it. That's why they died," he says, his eyes squeezing shut as his mind starts to really assault him. "Lou, you gotta help me. I… I…"

"The guilt," Lou says, wide blue eyes trained on him when the totally consuming fear hits her. "Dean? Are you… fuck, man. Are you gonna kill yourself?"

He nods as his eyes water over a little. "You can't let me… even if I deserve to. You can't let me do that to L. Don't… I can't leave her and Sammy."

* * *

Looking down on the tiny form in his hold, Bobby has to wonder what the hell he was so scared over all this time.

He wasn't going to be a father. He knew that from the moment he pulled that trigger in his kitchen when he was just ten and watched his drunken, abusive father's body hit the tiled floor. Bobby Singer was not to have children. He's not the stellar example of father material, not back when he was younger at least. Karen was convinced otherwise but he knew better.

But now he knows that he was wrong and his wife, the smarter one of the two anyways, was right all along.

Sammy. He never in a million years could have imagined his life leading up to this. He's feeding a baby. Better yet, he's feeding a baby that he simply adores. And the fact that Sammy will grow up calling him grandpa… surreal.

And he hasn't freaked out once. He hasn't run away or refused to hold the little, very fragile guy. Instead he takes every chance he can to hold him and help care for him. Hell, he knows the displeasures of changing a diaper. And he loves it.

If only he'd known all this before Karen died. If only they'd had more time, he'd gotten over his insecurities, they could have had a family together. He could have been a real dad instead of the substitute one to a group of orphaned adults looking for guidance. At this point the baby in his arm could even be his own, blood related grandson. Not to take away from the family he's made for himself. He loves those damn kids as if they really were his own… but if Karen had lived….

"I gotta stop doing that," Bobby says to Sammy as he eats. "If I can give ya one piece of advice for life… don't play the could've-been game. Could drive ya nuts."

Sammy simply lets his eyes look up at his grandfather while he goes about his feeding time.

Bobby just huffs a laugh at him, adoring the time together.

"How was it?" Lizzy asks her little boy as he finishes up the bottle in Bobby's hand, smiling wide as she walks over towards them.

"Looks like it was good enough," Bobby jokes, putting the now empty bottle onto his personal desk. "That was record timing."

"He eats faster every day," Lizzy smirks a little, loving just simply watching Sammy get bigger by the second. Her heart swells as the child looks at her, his big, bright eyes locked on her as if he could see that far.

Standing up and walking to him, Lizzy crouches down in front of Bobby and gets in close to her son. She rubs her nose against his.

"And now it's time to change that dirty diaper," she says in a silly tone.

And then it happens.

"Oh my God!" she delights loudly as she backs up. "He smiled!"

Bobby glances at Sam across the room on the couch with a book in his lap. "He did?" he asks with fake surprise. She doesn't need to know they've already seen it.

"Yes! Holy crap!" she gets beyond excited, her face once more moving into his as she Eskimo-kisses Sammy once more. His face lights up and he smiles wider than before at his mother. "Oh my God! Oh, Sammy!" She pulls him out of Bobby's arms and kisses his face over and over. "That was amazing! Uh, my handsome little boy!"

Sam keeps his head tucked down and in his book to hide the huge smile on his face. That was absolutely worth not telling Lizzy that Sammy smiled yesterday. This excitement, the happiness she has over seeing that for what she thinks is the first time, nothing compares to that. With how exceptional she is as a mother she's earned that moment.

"Oh my God, I have to get him to do it again," Lizzy says, standing up and searching for her phone. She spies it on the kitchen table and grabs it quick. "I got send Dean this. He's… he's gonna love it…" The end of her statement has a clear drop in tone. He's not here. He's not here to see this huge moment in their one and only child's life. "He'd wanna see it."

Lizzy immediately forces herself to perk up. He's out there because he feels he has to and there's no reason to taint Sammy's milestone with sadness.

"Alrighty, Sammy," Lizzy says, her tone back to excited as Bobby and Sam once more exchange glances, this time ones of worry about her. She holds her son on his back across her forearm with her phone in her other hand. She smiles wide and rubs her nose to his, quickly snapping a picture of Sammy when he smiles right after. "Gotcha!"

Lizzy looks down at her phone and sees the resulting photo.

"Perfect." She shows Sammy. "Look at my beautiful man, huh?"

"Man?" Sam jokes. "I think we have a few years before you can call him that."

"Thankfully," Lizzy says back, happy to keep him her little guy for as long as possible. She then turns to Bobby and holds her phone screen to him. "How cute is he, huh?"

"The cutest," he flatly returns as his own phone starts to ring. He huffs a half-laugh at her before answering the call. "Yeah."

"Is Lizzy in the room?"

Bobby pauses with the rushed and worried question. This is the last thing he expected to hear.

"Uh… sure is."

"Ok, I need you to listen and put on your poker face, you understand me?" Lou directs, her voice hard and serious.

"Yep." He keeps his voice light and he looks down at his lined paper pad, pen in hand. He best look busy, right.

"I mean it," Lou emphasizes. "She is to know _none of this_!"

"I hear ya, Jack," Bobby answers back, using a name Lizzy doesn't know. He pulls the phone away from his ear and yells to Lizzy, "Damn, you gonna change him or what? He's stinking up my study."

"Grouchy much?" Lizzy asks when he kills her good time as she types out a text message. "I'm going now."

"Good. He's ripe."

"Take it easy…" Lizzy trails off and heads up the stairs.

Once she's out of ear shot he asks Lou, "What's the problem on your end?"

"There's only one Fury left… and she got to Dean."

"What!?" Bobby forgets about the poker face and gets immediately angry and quite frightened.

"Shut up!" Lou yells back. "Dude, you gotta earn your Oscar on this one!"

"Alright, fine," Bobby calms his tone and looks up to see both other adults staring him down.

"Everything ok down there?" Lizzy asks from the second floor when she hears Bobby sounding alarmed.

"Lie! Lie your face off!" Lou shouts to him when she hears Lizzy in the background and he does.

"It's just Jack!" Bobby shouts up to her starts acting his ass off. "He's an ass. Nothing for you to get concerned by, Liz."

"Ok," she shouts back.

Sam looks at Bobby with obvious concern, knowing something's up, and Bobby waves him over.

"Liz is gone," Bobby says quietly as Sam stands next to his chair. "What the hell is going on out there?"

Sam mouths the word _speaker_ and he puts the call on speaker, the volume low as to not give Lizzy any idea what's up.

"Buck and Wade… they came to town and encountered the Furies. They managed to off two of them but the third must have gotten away. She got her revenge on them and killed them, making it look like another set of suicides."

"Ok, ok… so what about Dean?" Bobby asks and Sam's eyes go wide with the mention of his brother.

"She found him," Lou explains. "She was working for the police station and was on to us the whole time. She got to him and…"

There's a pause on the other end and Bobby and Sam can both hear muttering of words they cannot make out. They just know it's Dean's voice.

"Dean?" Sam calls out over the line. "Can you hear me?"

_Tell her to untie me, Sam!_

He sounds utterly panicked.

"She tied you up?" Sam questions his faraway brother's voice.

_Please, Sammy! I gotta do this! Tell her!_

"Do what?" Sam asks with fright.

_I shouldn't be alive, you know this! He should be! He shouldn't have done it!_

"He?" Sam asks. "Who's he?"

_You know who!_

"Dean, listen to me," Sam says in the strongest voice he has, not having the first clue as to what Dean's talking about. "You can't give in to this. Ok? You have a wife and son now…"

_They shouldn't have to deal with me and all my shit. They're better off without me. _

"Are you out of your mind?"

_You watch them for me. You're better for them than I could ever be._

"What!? What the hell are you talking about!?"

_Sammy, you gotta let me do this! Please! Tell Lou to untie me!_

"No fucking way is that happening," Lou clearly says to Dean before once more speaking into the phone. "So, as you can tell… it's pretty bad over here right now."

Sam grits his teeth. "Where're the keys?"

"What keys?" Lou questions with confusion.

"The friggin' keys to your car!" Sam yells, taking Bobby's phone. "I'm coming out there. You can't deal with him _and_ the police officer alone… not with a god on your ass. You need back up."

"They're not in the cabin?"

Sam sighs heavily. "Lou, this isn't the time to fuck around with me!"

"I'm not! I don't know where it is. Dean said he took care of it… shit," she says before he and Bobby can hear her voice away from the phone. "Dean! Where're the keys to my car?"

_I don't know._

"Fuck! Dean, where did you put them!?"

_I don't want her here for this!_

"Lizzy isn't coming! Where're the keys?"

"This is a fucking nightmare," Sam mutters as he listens in, a hand over his eyes.

"Dean!" Lou keeps trying

_What are you gonna do, Lou. You gonna kill me if I don't tell you?_

"Don't fucking tempt me!"

_Bring it on, sweetheart! You'd be doing me a favor!_

"Lou!" Sam yells into the phone to get her back and focused. "Lou!"

"_Fuck_!" she shouts out of sheer frustration before her voice returns to full volume on the phone. "What!?"

"Stop for a second here, ok? Deep breath," Sam directs in a calm tone, listening to Lou right after take a deep breath and let it out. "Lou, you're ok. Don't let him get to you because that isn't him talking."

"Trying to remember that," Lou says honestly. "It's just… it's kinda hard to hear him say these things, you know?"

"Yeah, I know," Sam admits. "But hang in there. I'll be on my way. I just need to figure out how to start your car."

"Fuck… you could… hotwire it…. I guess," she gives permission through obviously clenched teeth. It pained her terribly to say that and both Bobby and Sam know it.

"Lou, hon, Dean did more than just hide the keys," Bobby tells her. "He disconnected some lines and screwed with the engine a little bit."

"WHAT!?" she screams into the phone. "What the fuck did you do to my car!?"

"Focus!" Sam yells back. "Lou, Bobby can fix it."

"I can!?" he cuts in, having no idea what the extent of Dean's handiwork is.

"You can," Sam assures.

_It won't start._

"What?" Sam asks. "Dean, why won't the car start?"

_L will know._

"Lizzy knows shit about cars," Sam rebuts.

_Only L will know… she's the only one that'll know…_

"I'm the only one that'll know what?" the new voice asks from the cabin stairs, Lizzy standing there with Sammy in her arms, fresh diaper and pajamas on for the night.

"I thought you said she wasn't in the God damned room!" Lou screams at the men that clearly didn't keep a very good lookout.

"She wasn't…" Sam mutters while staring at the very lost and very scared woman walking towards them.

"Dean?" she asks and stands right next to the desk, looking at the phone in Bobby's hand. "Baby, what's wrong?"

_L… I'm sorry… I, I…._

"What are you sorry for?" she wonders. She missed a good chunk of the conversation so she's not very in the loop. All she heard was Sam's yelling and someone on speaker phone so she came down to check in.

_I can't do this anymore._

"Do what, Hot Shot?"

_You're better off without me there to screw you and Sammy up. You don't need me. I'll only keep bringing shit to your doorstep and put you in danger._

Her heart feels like it'll explode with fear at this. "It got to you? Did they get to you!?"

_Sam will be there for you. And you have Bobby and Lou… that'll be enough for Sammy. You can raise him right and get out if I'm not around._

"That makes no sense! Dean, what the hell!? You love us. You love _me_!"

_Not enough. Nothing I ever do or say or… or try is ever enough for what you and Sammy deserve. _

"That is _not _true…"

_I shouldn't even be here. I shouldn't… I should be dead._

"What!?"

"Shit," Sam says, heart down into his feet with the guilt coming from Dean. He knows Dean has the epitome of guilty consciences and he knows how bad this is most likely about to get. "Lizzy, you gotta get him to tell you what only you would know. I don't care what you have to say to him. Then find out where I can get olive wood. Bobby, go fix the damn car and have it ready as soon as you can."

Sam then disappears into the basement to pack weaponry. Bobby nods at Lizzy and heads out the door to do what he can to put the Mustang back in order.

"Dean?" Lizzy says in a sad, almost too quiet voice. "Dean, please don't do this to us."

_I have to._

"But why?"

_I just do._

"Then let me say goodbye first," she tries a new tactic. "Baby, I love you too much for you to just do this to me without saying goodbye first. You should let me have that. And Sammy too."

_No. You guys can't see me like this._

"I've seen you worse," she promises, her voice light despite her true fears. "I'm coming to you."

_You can't._

"Too bad, I'm going to."

_No._

"Yes I am."

_You can't. Car won't start without the radiator hose._

Lizzy sighs and closes her eyes. "Where is it?"

_Only you would know._

"I know nothing about cars, you know that."

_Doesn't matter._

"Then what does that mean, only I would know?"

_It means… I'm glad I spent my last full day with you the way I did. Doing what we do best. I want that to be what I remember of you… and what you remember of me. That's us._

Sitting and thinking for a moment Lizzy lets the previous day run through her head. Fun. Very fun… they had a couple hours to themselves. But that didn't mean she'd understand where the hose is.

"Hot Shot, I don't understand…"

_You used to call me that all the time…_

"Focus, Dean," Lizzy sternly says, hearing Lou sigh in the background with obvious frustration.

_Just… make sure Sammy knows I loved him when he grows up, ok? I need him to know that. _

"Dean, stop it," she returns with, her voice heavy and choked as the fright of losing him starts to really hit her deep in her chest. "Please. I love you and I can't do this life without you having my back."

_You're a great mom. You'll be fine… and both of you would be better off without me fucking you up. If I were any good at parenting I wouldn't have left anyways._

"You've never fucked us up," she says, tears making their slow decent. "You've made us better. Without you we're not a family. Dean, _please_… where is the hose?"

_Lou, hang up the fucking phone. This is making it worse._

"Louie?" Lizzy loudly asks into the phone, praying her sister is still there.

"Don't listen to him," she tells her sister. "It's not him talking."

"Sadly, I know that it is," Lizzy rebuts with certainty but moves on to the important problems in the moment. "Bobby's getting the car working, Sam's packing up, and I'm going to find the hose."

"You figured it out?"

"No, but I have it narrowed down. Sam's gonna come out and back you up. It's the best we got right now."

"Shit," Lou swears hard, hating the plan already. "Guess I should have seen it coming."

"Dean's in trouble so you can't stop him," Lizzy brushes off the reasoning. "I'll also figure out where to get olive wood so that by the time he arrives he should be toting a weapon with him."

"Fuck. Alright. I'll keep us holed up and safe."

"Ok, good." Lizzy sighs, her fear obvious. "Uh, Louie…?"

"He's not going anywhere, Lizard. I promise you Dean will be with me when we come home… alive. This douche bag isn't killing himself."

"Thank you," Lizzy sighs, actually felling slight relief with her trust in Lou. "You stay safe."

"Love ya too."

Lizzy hangs up the phone and immediately runs to the stairs and up to the second floor.

"Ok… ok," Lizzy nods as she stands in the doorway of the bedroom that she, Dean, and Sammy have been sharing in their tiny cabin. The room is small with the bare minimum. Besides a bed and a crib there's no other furniture. She looks at the open closet, a few items hung that she had to purchase after the fire and a couple duffels packed for emergency fleeing situations. "Where did you put the fucking hose, Hot Shot?"

Starting with the bed, Lizzy starts stripping away the sheets and blankets. He said only she would know where the hose is and that he was happy their last day together was what it was. A few days ago Lou had gone into the nearest town on a food run and conveniently took Bobby, Sam and Sammy with her. She winked on the way out and the second the door was closed they were all over each other.

But as she flips the mattress and the box spring and then pulls the headboard away from the wall… she finds nothing. Which makes no sense because their quality time that day was certainly spent in this bed…

"_I'm getting Lou a fruit basket to say thanks," Dean jokes as he leans over his wife, pulling the towel around his waist off and tossing it away. _

"_The least you could do," Lizzy laughs, her voice bright and airy and unlike anything he's heard from her in a while. She seems younger right now, carefree, and that's something they are no longer used to._

_Lizzy pulls Dean down onto her, his body flush against hers, and kisses him again. They move without true urgency for once, the timer not set for their encounter this time. No baby will start crying any second and no sister or brother or father figure will come looking for them to help with anything. It's just them. That's all that matters. _

_Dean and Lizzy. _

"_Mm, my God I've missed you," Dean jokes a little, looking into her eyes as the sincerity pours out of him. He has missed her. He's missed everything about her._

"_Baby," Lizzy says with a slight smile, pressing her lips to his lightly once. She circles her arms around his neck and watches his focus roam her form, his expression just as hungry as ever for her. "Please?"_

_His eyes snap up to hers again, looking at her with the lust they seem to never have time for these days. "Only because you asked so nicely."_

_A hand to either side of his face and Lizzy kisses him again before making sure he knows, "I love you, Hot Shot. So much."_

_Dean looks right into her bright, chestnut colored eyes, taking a quick moment before saying in return, "You are everything to me."_

…but as wonderful a memory as that one is, it doesn't help her find the damn hose to the car.

"Fuck, Dean," she complains and stands in the doorway again, looking over the upended room that she's now torn apart, even Sammy's crib. She found nothing.

If he wanted her to figure it out by mentioning the day they spent together… then where the fuck is the hose?

"He's fucking with me…" she starts to think aloud when she peeks into the corner of the room. His towel. The tan, scratchy towel Dean was wearing when they came into their bedroom that day is in a heap in the corner. He forgot it was there.

The bathroom!

It dawns on her all at once. When Lou shut the front door, tossing her a slick wink on the way, Lizzy and Dean pounced on each other. But before she was willing to do a whole lot with him she insisted that she needed a shower. It'd been two days of being busy with Sammy and still trying to set the cabin up properly enough for them all to live as comfortably as possible. She stunk. She wasn't willing to get physical with him without a quick shower.

But instead of her showering quickly it turned into something else entirely…

"_Dean, at least let me get cleaned off before you… do anything…" Lizzy says with a little embarrassment as her shirt gets pulled over her head and a pair of very insistent lips find her shoulder._

"_You're fine," Dean says as he undoes the button on his own jeans hastily while kissing her lips. "Take off those pants_. _Let's go."_

"_No, seriously, Dean… I smell like baby puke and dirty diapers and sweat…."_

"_Ok, fine. Let's get in the shower then," he suggests, grabbing her hand tightly and walking for the bathroom. _

"_Yeah?" Lizzy asks, already liking the compromise. She does need a shower. And she does need to get laid._

"_Yeah, come on." He grins with excitement as they make their way, him leading her the entire time._

_Over the sound of the shower spray hitting the tiled walls Lizzy watches Dean very quickly get himself undressed within his childlike excitement. She loves this version of him. So innocent even when about to do the opposite of innocent. And when he turns around to look at her, eyes wide and bright green with love and lust and then makes his way to her, her heart skips a beat._

"Alright, you little shit," Lizzy says as she starts to tear the room apart. "I'm gonna figure out where you put that hose if it kills me."

* * *

"What's dead should stay dead," Dean whispers to himself for the millionth time as he sits tied to a chair next to Officer Morris.

"Say it again and you get the duct tape too!" Lou explodes with fury as she glares at him, sawed-off in her grip. She heads for the window and peeks out the curtains yet again, her anxiety growing steadily within their sitting ducks situation.

Dean glances at Kyle and sees the silver tape across his mouth. What does it matter if she tapes him? It won't change the fact that he's guilty and needs to die.

"I should have stayed dead…"

"Dean!" Lou shouts and marches to him, bending at the waist and staring eye to eye at him. Hours of this on end is more than she can take without losing all of her patience. "If you're gonna babble on about shit staying dead then you better fucking tell me what the hell you're talking about before I punch the fucking words out of your mouth."

Dean just looks at her, eyes hollow and broken as the guilt continues to pummel him from the inside out. "I should have stayed dead. He should be alive, not me."

"Who?" Lou asks.

"What's dead should stay dead," Dean looks downward into his lap with shame and regret.

"Hey!" Lou shouts, grabbing his jaw with her left hand and pulling his face up to look at her again. "Who should be alive instead of you?"

A shaky breath in and Dean finally tells her, the words physically hurting to say. "Dad. Dad should have survived. I… should be dead."

Lou's heart shatters when he looks at her after finally admitting his guilt. His eyes plead for her to help, to make the pain better. He looks so helpless… and she has no idea what to do about it.

"Dad should have lived. I should have died, Lou. It should have been me."

Taking a few steps back, Lou breathes deeply once with the hefty situation they're in. He's damaged and a mess, sure, but how does she justify this one?

"Fuck," Lou mumbles, sitting on one of the bed in the motel room to regroup. She needs to figure this out. She has to find a way to explain to Dean that he shouldn't feel guilt over this but she has no idea how to.

"What's dead should stay dead…" Dean repeats, his eyes closed as he rocks forward and back in his chair. "I should be dead, not him. Not dad."


	9. The Truth Hurts

**Note: This chapter has been edited from it's original form for compliance with the M rating on FanFiction. For the full, MA version of this chapter please visit this same story on Archive of Our Own. The story title and chapter title are the same. The author name is DeepLittleSOB. The link to my Dashboard is in my profile.**

* * *

"Fuck!" Lizzy shouts with total frustration as she sits onto the floor of the small bathroom, the place torn apart in her efforts to find the hidden car part. Every item they stowed in there from the medicine cabinet, under sink storage, and the small linen closet are strewn about the floor. The shower curtain is down, toilet tank cover removed, and she's found absolutely nothing. No hose anywhere.

With her back to the rustic wooden vanity Lizzy looks at the shower, the place where she and Dean enjoyed some of their free time just days ago, and begins to wonder if she'll ever have that kind of moment like that with him again if she can't come up with the missing piece to the Mustang.

"_Fuck, that never gets old," Dean says as she sighs and whimpers with satisfaction as the shower water continues to rain down on them in their interlocked position.._

"_Oh yeah," Lizzy says to him, happy as ever. "You keep doing me like that and you'll never stop seeing it either."_

_His eyes darken as he looks at her. "Yeah?" he goads her on, loving when she talks. _

"_Yes. I love the way you fuck me," she starts it, pulling his neck a little until she's speaking into his ear. "I love the way you make me feel."_

"_God damn," he swears when her words get him going quickly. It's been so long that she's spoke like this. It's been poopy diaper this and bottle that… he almost forgot she was such a talker._

_"Let's get out of the shower," she says to him. "Bed."_

"_I guess I'll fix the shower wall later then," he jests, kissing her again before putting her down and stepping out of the shower. He turns the water off as Lizzy looks down, a lone old blue tile lying there._

"_I broke the wall?" she questions with surprise as Dean laughs at her._

"_Damn straight," he tells her, grabbing her hand and helping her over the tub edge. He hands her a towel before grabbing one for himself. "Must have been a good one."_

"_Eh, you can do better than that," Lizzy smirks, drying herself off a little bit while staring at her beautiful example of a man she calls her own. _

"_Oh really?" he plays along, rubbing the towel in his hair before wrapping it around his waist._

"_Mm-hmm," she nods, covering herself up with her own towel._

_He yanks her arm until she's flush against him and plants one very serious kiss on her lips. He then scoops her up into his arms, carrying her with a bright smile that she hasn't seen on him in what feels like years. _

"_Challenge accepted," he says and books it to the stairs, looking to get her in their bed as soon as humanly possible._

Staring at the tile wall of the shower from her seat on the floor Lizzy can see the one blue tile by the corner that's surrounded by a brighter-white, newer grouting. The work was clearly done in a rush, the grout not properly wiped and applied, and the tile slid a bit out of place, making it crooked. It takes a second to understand what he was trying to tell her.

Only she would know. Only she would know that they had sex in the shower and that she was the one that popped that tile out of place. Only she would know to look there because of that.

"Oh my God," she says in a rush as she scrambles to her feet. She presses on the tile and the, what she thought was, grout gives way far too easily. It crumbles right up and the tile falls back out as the scent of mint hits her nose. Toothpaste.

She reaches into the hole in the shower wall and just a few inches down she feels it.

"That man is far too smart for his own fucking good," she mutters to herself as she pulls her hand out and sees the hose in her hand. "I got it!" she shouts as she runs out of the room.

* * *

"So any Walmart or Target will do… Target is probably a better bet for something this specific," Lizzy says to Sam as he shuts the trunk of the Mustang, his weapons and packed bag stowed away. "There's one off of 93 when you get closer to Kalispell so keep your eyes wide open."

"Will do," Sam nods and heads for the driver's seat. "Bobby, you sure you got this thing running right?"

"I know two things in life, son," Bobby says, closing the hood and wiping his hands on a rag. "Evil shit and cars. She's running more than fine."

"Alright," Sam smiles very small at him and opens the door to get in.

"Sam!" Lizzy calls out his name, getting him to pause and look at her standing next to him with a snowsuit-clad Sammy in her hold. "Um, please be careful. If you see Lucifer…"

"Lizzy, don't start that. I'll be fine," Sam assures her as internally he prays that what he says is true.

"And if you're not, you call me right away," she sternly dictates her rule for him. "You call me and get a reality check, ok? I'll answer at any hour. You're alone on this until you get there…"

"Stop worrying so much," Sam says calmly.

"I won't until you bring your brother home and your head is in one piece," she says reluctantly, hugging Sammy closer while clearly biting the inside of her lip with anxiety.

"I'll be back, with Dean, in a day or two. We know how to kill her so she's going down. You try and rest up. You look exhausted." Sam lowers into the car as Lizzy sighs.

"I _am_ exhausted," she whispers to herself, her cheek pressed to the top of Sammy's head.

"You watch yourself, Sam," Bobby says to the man over the sound of the engine. He's decided that it's best for Sam to leave alone and he stick around. As much as they all have a lot to be guilty for his pile is a bit steeper than even most hunters. He's pretty sure he'd be a beacon guiding a vengeful Fury right to them.

Sam just nods and puts the car in drive, heading down the long dirt pathway leading to their cabin. Bobby and Lizzy watch the taillights until they disappear, both getting that pit-of-the-stomach fearful feeling the second he's gone.

"Well, just you and me again, kiddo," Bobby says to Lizzy while looking down at Sammy in her arm. He gives over his index finger and Sammy grips it in his hand, looking up at the older man with his bright blue-green eyes.

"Feels like that's just the way these days, huh?" Lizzy jokes without cracking a smile.

"You know what?" Bobby starts as he gently grabs Sammy under his arms and lifts him out of Lizzy's arms, the woman letting him do so with nothing but trust. "Why don't you go lay down for a bit?"

"Yeah, right…" Lizzy says, crossing her arms over her chest and shivering with the cold and the worry.

"Yeah… right," Bobby tells her. "We did all we can do. No research needed, they have the answers…"

"My husband is a second away from killing himself, Bobby," Lizzy says, her eyes suddenly showing the fright and utter desperate anxiety she's feeling. Her poker face is so good these days she can even fool him sometimes. But the poker face is gone now. "I can't… I'm not sleeping. I'm not doing anything until I see him walk through this door alive and well. Then… then and only then I'll sleep."

Bobby nods, looking at the quiet and calm Sammy in his arms, the little boy coming quickly up on three months of age. He's growing bigger by the second and his features are sharper every day. He's looking far too much like that currently in trouble daddy of his.

"Well then, how about I make some tea and we watch a little Telenovela while we wait to hear from Sam," Bobby suggests. If she won't sleep at least he can try and keep her quiet and low key. This girl has been running on empty since the second Sammy came into the world. Between his schedule, their bad luck, and monsters on their tails she's averaging a couple hours a night and a blood pressure number that must be off the charts. To say he's worried about her would be a massive understatement.

"I can do that," Lizzy responds, leaning forward to kiss her son's face once before heading inside. She'll play along and do what he asks but, like she said, until Dean comes home safe and sound, and she slugs him one for scaring the living shit out of her, she'll be a mess that cannot be helped.

The Wonder Woman label is starting to get awful tiring.

* * *

Lou stares at her phone, willing it to ring. She spoke to Sam from the road a few hours ago and since then she's been counting the seconds.

Looking at the two men tied to their chairs, each with duct tape over their mouth at this point, she continues to worry. She needs back up and the whole waiting for the evil to find her thing is wearing on her.

Adjusting herself on the mattress, stretching her legs out after sitting Indian style too long, she nearly jumps out of her skin when there's a knock on the door. She checks the clock on the night stand. Just short of two hours, right when he said he'd arrive.

"Thank fucking God!" Lou nearly shouts while jogging for the door, sawed-off in hand. She grabs the door knob and pulls. "I was losing my shit by myse…."

"Hello, Lou," Elizabeth's smiling face greets the moment the door is open and without waiting she steps through the door, grabs the hunter's face, and plants her lips onto Lou's.

* * *

Sam pulls into the motel parking lot as his heart pounds. It's about time he got there. The drive was nerve-wracking enough and now that he's there he just wants to jump in and get this done.

"You think they're still alive?"

Sam looks into the rearview mirror to see Lucifer looking right back at him from the backseat.

"Because, Sammy… I got a bad feeling about this one…."

Sam ignores him, getting out of the car and heading for the trunk. As he opens it he can hear the passenger side door squealing and Lucifer continue talking.

"I mean, it took hours to get here," the tormenter points out as Sam arms himself, grabbing his Taurus and checking that the clip is full. "That's plenty of time for a Fury to find where they've been hiding out. I bet she got to them. I bet they're dead."

"Shut up," Sam grits out, angered by the fear his hallucination is bringing on.

"They're dead, Sam," Lucifer keeps trying. "Dead as disco."

Sam drops his handgun into the trunk and closes his eyes while pressing his thumb into his palm. Sure, the cut there is healing but it still hurts enough when abused that he can focus on the realness of the pain and remind himself that old Luci is not real.

The Devil blinks out and disappears, Sam's shoulder dropping with relief. He's got enough on his plate that he doesn't need the extra distraction and grief.

Sam takes his gun, slams the trunk closed, and sprints to the motel room Lou gave him on the way. He knocks immediately. He waits for an answer but gets nothing instead. He knocks again. "Lou!?"

Nothing.

"Lou, it's me!" Sam tells her but once more nothing happens. He can't even hear anyone moving in the room. "Come on, Lou!"

His heart pounds faster and faster as he waits.

"I'm coming in!" he warns and turns the door knob, it not being locked. That just scares him all the more.

The door's unlocked. No one is answering him. Not good. Pushing the door open, he looks inside and the blood in his veins goes cold.

"Lou! _Don't_!"

Lou looks over to him with black makeup-smudged, red-rimmed eyes as she sits at the foot of one of the beds. Her sad, desperate face latches onto his as her grip on the silver blade tightens, its point pressed into her chest over her heart.

The second she registers that it's Sam in the doorway she burst out crying in a way that Lou has _never_ done since she saw her dead, mutilated parents on the worst night of her life.

"What the fuck… Lou!? Where's Dean!?" Sam panics as he looks to the side and sees two empty chairs, ropes still strung around them.

"I killed her," Lou says quietly through her sobs as her back hunches and she looks downward to avoid him. "I shouldn't have… I should have listened to you…"

"What!?' Sam asks when her words confuse the hell out of him. "Lou, Jesus, put the knife down."

"I deserve this," Lou tells him and grips the handle harder, ready to plunge it into her own chest.

"No! " Sam immediately shouts and takes a step forward to stop her. Immediately she's on her feet and holding the knife out at him in defense, taking a prepared, attack stance. He stops immediately. "Whoa, whoa. Ok. It's ok. It's just me."

"I should have listened to you!" Lou shouts at him in a crazed voice, clearly losing control of herself completely. The tears are constant and Sam's at a total loss with this. He's never once seen Lou anywhere near this messed up before. "I didn't listen!"

"Ok… that's ok," Sam tried to assure her, forcing a slight smile on his face. "You're stubborn as hell. You never listen to anyone, especially me…"

"NO! I should have _listened_!" she yells at him from deep inside her being, her face showing her anger at herself. "I didn't listen to you and now you'll hate me!"

Sam's heart stops with that. He looks at her with total shock. "Lou… nothing you could do could make me hate you. I could _never_ hate you."

Lou's face scrunches up with utter desperation and sadness. She hangs her head and tells him, "You would if you knew."

"If I knew what?" Sam questions and he waits. All he gets is a head shake in return. "What the hell did you do?"

"I killed her," Lou cries out, hearing the admission as it prepares to launch out of her mouth. "I shouldn't have…"

"Who did you kill?"

"I killed her."

"Killed who!?" Sam demands from her.

"Amy!" Lou shouts and gets it over with, peering at him with sheer guilt and regret. "I fucking killed Amy!"

"No you didn't," he quickly responds, sounding like he doesn't believe her yet down deep he already knows she's telling the truth.

"I did."

"No… you let her go…." Sam pauses, unable to breath. "You told me you'd let her go. You said you'd follow my lead."

"And I lied to you," she cries harder, sitting back down in the bed. "I lied right to your face every day since we left Helena."

Sam takes a step back, his voice caught in his throat when she mentions the city. "Helena?" he questions as his brain figures it all out. "You… you said there was a possible case there that we should check out."

"There was never a case in Helena," Lou admits quietly, the tears spilling constantly.

"You brought me there… you tracked her down and, and killed her, didn't you? After we let her go!? After you promised me you wouldn't!?" Sam's voice grows louder and louder as his brain settles into the reality she presents him. She killed Amy. Lou killed Amy. Lou didn't trust him.

"I don't deserve you," Lou collapses in sobs, sitting once more onto the edge of the bed, knife in her hand resting on her lap. "I don't. You're so much better than me and I lied. I lied to you and I let you trust me and… and I killed Amy."

"Why would you do that?" Sam questions, his tone showing how hurt to his core he is by her.

"She had to die. She was gonna kill again…"

"No she wasn't!" he yells at her with sheer anger.

The second she can hear the hatred in his voice Lou loses it. "I should be dead. I killed her and I shouldn't have. I lied and… you'll be better off without me, Sam. You need someone much better than me. Someone that won't do this to you."

She turns the knife on herself once more, the point at her chest.

"Lou! No!" Sam tries to stop her the second he sees the suicidal thoughts start to return.

"You don't need me!" Lou says her inner-most fears. "I gave in to you! I have never in my life done that before because that shit scares the fuck out of me. I committed to you, I did that for _you_… and then I let you down! Your life is crappy enough without me making it worse. I'm no good for you, Sam!"

"Are you out of you mind?" Sam asks her, knowing full well that she is. He takes a slow step forward so as not to freak her out. "Lou… I absolutely need you. All I need is you, especially right now. I'm a fucking mess without you."

"I'm not gonna change my mind on this," she responds with determination, looking at the wall straight ahead instead of at him to her side. She fixes her aim and prepares.

"I _need_ you to change your mind on this," Sam pleads as he comes even closer, watching as Lou's eyes slip closed as she cries on. Sam's anger over Amy's death is suddenly taking a backseat to keeping Lou alive. "You think I can survive without you?"

"You did for years," she answers, eyes still trained on the off-white wallpaper.

"But I wasn't as broken as I am now," Sam tells her, kneeling onto the floor at her feet and putting himself in her line of vision. "Don't know if you noticed but I'm a disaster. More than I ever was. I don't even know what's real half the time… but you… I know you're real."

"I shouldn't have killed her…"

"No, you shouldn't have," Sam agrees in a hard voice, making it clear that he won't change his mind on this, at least not right this moment. "But that doesn't mean you deserve to die."

"I should be out of your life. I lied to you."

"People lie to me all the time. I'm used to it," Sam tells her, bringing his hands to her face. He pushes her hair off to the sides and holds her cheeks. "You're not gonna kill yourself. I just got you back. I can't lose you again."

"You'd be better off…"

"No I wouldn't," he says gripping her face harder. "You can't keep saying that. Lou, without you… damn it, I have nothing without you. Nothing. Seriously. How do you not get that?"

"I… I love you, Giant," Lou says quietly, looking right into his eyes and quickly lifting her hand with the knife.

"NO!" Sam shouts once more in horror and grabs her wrist in both hands. He wrestles the knife from her quickly, using their size difference as his upper hand, and quickly pins her on her back on the mattress. With her wrists in his hands and pushed into the comforter at her sides, he looks down on her desperate and pathetic face streaked with tears. "You're not leaving me. Not yet."

Sam presses his lips to hers, kissing her with the simplicity of their bond. The whole fucking world is crazy and full of shit and terrible and fake… but what they have is real and basic. It's love. That simple.

And when he feels her arms try to lift towards him he lets his grip on her go. Her hands come to his neck, gripping hard when he can feel her start to respond and kiss him back, and he knows something's shifted in her. His chest jumps with the change, hope seeping into his being.

"Lou?" he asks, his lips still brushing over hers before kissing her deeply one more time. "You with me?"

She pulls him closer, kisses him harder, and gives herself over to him for just a second longer. That's right. This is Sam. Yes, he'll be pissed at her for what she did. Yes, he's probably going to hate her for a little while at least… but in the end he loves her. He loves her in a way she never could have thought existed outside of chick flicks. He won't just leave her for this, even if she knows she'd deserve it and a lesser man would be dumb to stick around. She holds out hope that he can get over this.

"I'm with you," she whispers out, her embarrassment already running for the display she just put on now that her brain is returning to her. "Fuck. I'm with you, Giant."

"Come on," Sam says, getting up and pulling her onto her feet by her arms. He's happy she's back despite the fear he has about her killing Amy and what it'll do to them but he needs to shove it all aside. "Where did Dean go?"

"What?" Lou asks with confusion but it all comes back when she glances at the chair he'd been in. "Oh fuck!" she yells at her own self and runs for her weapons pack, grabbing her Smith &amp; Wesson 1911, the gun Lizzy got her when she returned. "I must have cut him loose."

"You don't know if you did!?" Sam asks, picking up the silver knife Lou had just almost taken her life with and keeping it, not letting it near her until he's sure it's safe.

"I think that bitch told me to," she says while searching.

"What bitch?"

"Elizabeth… The Fury … whatever the fuck her name is. It's a little hazy. Where's my gun?"

"I don't know…."

"Shit," Lou says, standing up and looking around.

She sees the bathroom door open a crack, the light on. She rushes over to it, praying she left her favorite weapon in there, but when she opens the door she inhales with shock before backing out instantly.

"Fuck! Damn it!" she yells with pure frustration, turning away with her hands on her hips while breathing hard with shock and loss.

"What is it?" Sam asks, looking at her with concern.

"It's Kyle…" She covers her face with the disappointment in herself.

Sam walks to the bathroom and peeks in, seeing what's upsetting her so badly. The unmoving body of an officer of the law is lying in the bathtub, blood pooling under him from the gunshot to the gut. Lou's gun is still in his hand and his pale face looks up at nothing, the expression frozen in fear.

This is what is happening to Dean, Sam thinks. He grabs the gun very quickly out of the officer's hand and wipes it down with a motel towel. They need to get out of here and find his brother.

"Where did Dean go?" Sam asks, panicked a bit now.

"Don't know," she says, eyes apologetic and once more guilty. "He was mumbling about things should stay dead and that your dad should be alive instead of him."

"Damn it!" Sam yells as he rushes to the car, immediately knowing what that means. He grabs his laptop and sprints back inside, turning it on and connecting to the motel wifi as quickly as he can.

"What do you know that I don't know?" Lou questions as she shuts the bathroom door to avoid her failure, knowing Sam's a mile ahead of her on this one.

"Dad made a deal to save Dean's life in exchange for his own," Sam says quickly, typing furiously.

"So you're telling me he's…."

"At a crossroads summoning a demon?" Sam finishes for her, looking at her with worry. "Definitely."


	10. A Fair Deal

"Dean, honey… you aren't making a whole lot of sense right about now so maybe I should just go," the comely demon says to him as she walks away from the hunter that summoned her in the center of the dirt crossroads in the middle of nowhere.

"I don't want time," Dean explains yet again, his form sagging with grief and eyes red with sorrow. "I don't want years and, and I'm not asking for any miracles in return. I don't want anything but a fair and even trade."

"So you've gone ahead and lost your mind, is that it?" she returns with, spinning around on her high, shiny heels to look at him. "Just shoving your already tainted, blackened soul right back down there for round two?"

"If you'll have me," Dean says with hope.

"No," she flatly answers. "There's no deal to be had here, Dean. Go home."

"Why not!?" he irrationally shouts at her.

"Because we don't have your damn father anymore and you know that!" she shouts back, eyes burning red with fury. "_You_ opened the gate to Hell. _You_ let him out. Remember that?"

Dean's speechless. He did forget. His guilt crushed him into submission so hard that he completely let it slip that his father is no longer stuck in Hell. But that doesn't change anything. His father should never have experienced Hell at all. If it weren't for Dean he wouldn't have had to make that deal to save his life and spend over a century in the worst place that only nightmares could come up with… and still wouldn't even compare. Not even close.

"I still deserve it."

"What?" the demon asks, not understanding.

"I deserve to be in Hell," he says much louder this time, his timidity gone now that he knows what he absolutely has to do. "I deserve to serve my time right… I should be rotting."

"Well… we agree on that at least," the demon says with her arms crossing over her chest and eyeing him as she thinks it over. "So… let me see if I have this correctly. You, Dean Winchester, are coming to me at two in the morning to ask that I toss your shapely ass right into the fire… for free."

"You got it," Dean quickly responds.

"No."

"Why not!?"

"That's not how it works."

"Then make it work that way!" he practically screams in her face as the guilt grows by the second and his frustration level heightens.

The look he gets in return from the demon tells him to tread lightly with the powerful being in front of him and maybe not raise his voice at her for no fair reason.

"I, I just…." He sighs heavily. "Please." It's quick and simple, the word said with nothing short of sheer begging.

"No way in… well… Hell," she laughs a little. "That's not a deal."

"Why does it have to be a fucking deal!? Why can't you just take me now, no strings!?" he yells with frustration.

"Because the strings are what I do," she says, walking towards him slowly and casually. "Now, I'm sure I could come up with something we could deal with if you really want the express trip downstairs."

"I can't live like this," Dean says with true desperation, seeing the spark of hope that he might get what he wants. "Just name it."

"Your son."

Dean pauses when she mentions the little boy he forgot completely about for the time being, his brain clouded and muddled with searing guilt. "Sammy? The hell do you want with Sammy?"

Her eyes light up with excitement. "You want eternal damnation then you bring that adorable bundle of joy with you… his soul gets damned right next to yours. Now _that's_ a deal."

"He's just a baby!" He may be fucked in the head at the moment but he's not so messed up that Sammy's importance is washed away. "No fucking way!"

"Then no fucking deal."

"Wait!" Dean calls to her as she once more turns her back. "I…. Just stop!"

The demon faces him once more and waits as he clearly tries to come up with a plan.

"You can't have Sammy," Dean tells her in a strong determined voice. "That's not an option."

"I got that much," she says. "But you still need to make this a deal."

"Give them everything," Dean says to her, the desperation and guilt coming right back.

"What do you mean?"

"Lizzy and Sammy… they get a hands-off order on them. They go free and you protect them from _everything_ from here on out. And when I say everything, I fucking mean it. You bitches, the Leviathan, angels, ghosts, vamps, even God himself… every last thing. They live out a long, happy life without any hunting… and you get me. No ten years. No one year." His face goes to stone along with his tone. "You get me right now."

"You're not kidding, are you?" she asks him, her face dropping with his selfless offer made while clearly off his rocker. She knew something was wrong from the second she arrived. This isn't the Dean she's come to know through demon legend. This is a desperate, broken, and possibly very guilty man. He's in the perfect place for a mega deal. She'll make it to the top in no time. Crowley's about to adore her.

"No joking. No tricks. I go back to my rack in Hell and my family lives a good life for once. They deserve it. And they don't need me more than they need that."

She's not sure what to say about this as her face frowns. "Dean, you're making the biggest deal of my existence really fucking depressing. Could you at least smile about this?"

Dean just glares at her with hate.

"You'd really do this for your family?"

"In a heartbeat," he answers immediately, voice unwavering. "They're… they're everything. To me. They deserve more than I can give them without this deal." Something shifts inside of him right then. He came here guilty about his father but maybe that wasn't the only thing causing him tremendous guilt.

The beautiful demon puts her hands on her hips and narrows her eyes at him after letting his words settle in. "You really want to do this?"

"Yes. You promise me that they'll live a happy and safe life… you get me. No loopholes. You promise me they'll be fine and I'll march into Hell gladly. I'll skip there, with a smile."

She nods but doesn't look any less skeptical. "You know, this is so virtuous I feel almost… good… doing this."

"I still think you're a horrible bitch if that helps," Dean comments, his usual swagger completely gone and replaced with somber worry.

"A little," she comments sauntering up to him. "The safe and normal life for Elizabeth and Samuel Winchester… and in return I get The Great Dean right now." She steps up into his space, inches away from him.

"Yes," Dean confirms the deal, ready to make it and make the guilt stop once and for all.

"Then you know what to do, Dean," she eyes him hungrily as she moves in.

Deep breath and Dean leans in, his lips so close to hers, so ready to seal the deal…

Until he hears a familiar engine roaring in the not so far distance. He looks to the side before the demon can get her set-in-stone agreement.

"Dean!" he can hear a male voice calling out to him and when the Mustang makes it over the nearest hill on the backwoods dirt road he can see long brown hair flapping in the wind out the passenger side. When Sam's eyes lock onto him in the road ahead his heart jumps. "Dean! Damn it! Stop!"

"Sam?" he questions, shocked to see him.

"You want this Deal or not!?" the demon asks, her voice angry now that they've been interrupted.

"Dean! Don't!" Sam shouts as the car comes to a screeching stop, shoving the door open and rushing out. He starts to sprint towards his brother. "Don't! You don't need to do this!"

The crossroad demon thrusts her hand outward, sending Sam flying backwards into the side of the Mustang, his body pinned there telekinetically. "We were in the middle of something!"

Dean takes a deep breath and tries to process everything. He's guilty. His dad should never have known Hell. Sam's wrong. He deserves this.

His face gets grabbed harshly by the jaw, the demons one-handed grip hard enough to purse his lips a little. "You in or are you out?" she fires out.

"Don't!" Lou's voice yells out, shouting into the night air with fear and anger now that she's also out of her car. "Let him go!"

"I'm not holding him against his will," the crossroads demon says while still looking at Dean, his green eyes glued on hers as he prepares to damn himself.

"You're holding _Sam_ against _his_ will," she says, walking in long strides as she makes her way around the bumper of the car to get closer to the demon as she pulls the Colt out of the back of her pants. She cocks the gun and aims at her. "Let him go."

The second the demon sees the gun, knowing exactly what it is, she lets go of Dean's face before waving her hand through the air. Sam is on his feet instantly but both hang back, afraid to push the situation.

"What was the deal, Dean?" Sam asks angrily, eyes switching rapidly between the demon and his brother. "Huh? What were you gonna go back to the pit for?"

"Doesn't matter," Dean says in a low voice. "What's dead should stay dead…"

"Oh, cut the shit, dude," Sam tells him with impatience and exhaustion. "Dad was a jackass. He did things without thinking…"

"Just like me," Dean fills in. "I'm just like him."

"You're _nothing_ like him!"

"But I did exactly what he did… for _you_. I didn't think first, I never have. And now… now, I need to do this."

"No you don't," Sam swears, Lou still aiming at the demon. "What are you thinking? You're just gonna abandon Lizzy? You're gonna ditch _your own son_!?"

"I'm doing this _for_ them," Dean quietly responds and reaches out to cup the demon's face.  
"This is all for my family." He pulls her in to kiss her.

"Ah-ah… I don't think so," a voice directs calmly as a hand comes between Dean and the crossroad demon's faces, making a barrier.

With his eyes on Elizabeth as she appears out of nowhere, the Fury clamps her hand over Dean's mouth and backs him up a couple steps.

"Really, Dean?" she eyes him with disappointment, hand pressed over his lips. "A deal? I'm disappointed. I thought better of you then to rely on bottom feeders to get you your guilt release."

"Um, excuse me but… who the _hell_ are you?" the crossroad demon asks with sheer anger, her deal getting cut off.

Elizabeth just eyes the demon with an unimpressed expression. "You can leave now."

The demon looks floored. "I got summoned by him. We had a deal lined up…"

"And now you don't. I suggest you leave."

"No fucking way. Not without my deal."

Elizabeth rolls her eyes. "Have it your way." She aims her hand at the demon in the shape of a gun. "Bang," she says with disinterest and shoots the demon right in the chest, her body flashing in blue internal light as she twitches. Her body jerks a few times before it drops onto the ground, the demon dead.

The Fury then turns to look around her, the three hunters all at the crossroad and all with shocked faces. "I'm old. I have juice. Don't look so impressed."

They all take a deep breath with their new fear. They weren't ready for her to show up like this. They have no plan.

"I must admit, you guys are loyal to each other," she says, taking her hand away from Dean's mouth. She focuses on Lou. "And you figured it out. You broke through my pull."

"I need her and she knows that," Sam tells her, clenching his jaw with anger, his hand twitching to reach for the olive wood spoon with carvings and handle sharpened to a point inside his jacket.

"Love," she says with annoyance. "Been battling that fucking thing for millennia. Fair enough."

Looking at Dean, his still hallow eyes just staring at the dirt ground below his feet, his mind undoubtedly churning with how he is going to go about damning himself once more.

"Dean, why don't you relax," she says to him, running a hand down his cheek. A feeling of calm and nothingness comes over him, his feet planted into the ground where he is. He doesn't move, doesn't talk, he doesn't do anything. Mind empty, he just is.

"What did you do to him!?" Sam demands the second he sees the change.

"Gave him a rest. He's been turned up to eleven all day. He's exhausted."

They just stare at her with confusion.

"Don't worry. He's fine," she says, walking away from Dean and heading for Lou.

"Don't touch her," Sam says to the deity strongly, reaching into his jacket and pulling out the spoon weapon he made on the way there. He holds it with the handle towards her, the point aimed in her direction.

Elizabeth keeps walking towards Lou, a smirk of confidence on her face. "What the hell is that, the Martha Stuart hunter's collection?" she asks Sam.

"It's a way to end you and you know it," Sam tries to boom out as the Fury makes her way to Lou, her hand touching down her cheek just like she did with Dean's.

"That's downright adorable," she smiles, eyeing Lou's comatose state she just created. "My word, you did alright for yourself, Sam. I'm impressed. She's beautiful. And tough, wow."

"Wait!" Sam gets out but before he can do anything about it the Fury presses her lips to Lou's in a very quick kiss.

"Back on track." She smiles and runs her thumb along Lou's bottom lip with triumph.

Sam doesn't say anything, just holds his weapon tighter, ready to launch the second she's safely away from Lou.

"She loves you, you know? A lot. Ha, when I got to her… she was just brimming with guilt. You know what the biggest thing she had guilt over was?" Elizabeth asks, walking over to Sam casually and without fear. She looks the large man over, smelling the guilt of a long, hard, and unusually cruel life just ooze from his pores. He's perfect. "You. Not her parents, not abandoning Lizzy when she turned, not even the loss of the relationship she and her brother once had. It was all you."

"We had a disagreement," Sam mentions, preparing to plunge the wooden stake into her chest. She just needs to come a little closer.

"That was more than a disagreement," the Fury counters. "That was game changing… or at least she thinks it was."

"You talk too much, anyone ever tell you that?" Sam says, looking for her to shut the hell up as he waits for her to come close enough for him to attack.

"You're gonna dump her, aren't you?" she asks. "I get it. I do. How could you ever trust her again? She claims to love you, trust you completely… but her actions are speaking way louder than her words right now."

"Why don't you say all this right to my face?" Sam tries to get her moving.

"So you can stab me through?" she says, one eyebrow arched. "Oh, I'd love to see you give it your best shot. Could be fun." She walks faster and with full confidence.

"And don't worry about my relationship. We'll be fine," Sam spits back the second she stands defiantly in front of him and takes his best shot, his hand thrusting out towards her chest the second he thinks she's close enough. She counters disarmingly fast, snatching the olive wood spoon out of his hand, snapping it in half singlehandedly, and dropping it on the ground before grabbing his throat.

"I'm not so sure about that," the Fury honestly tells him as she pulls his face down to her, Sam trying to push her away but her immense strength as a god makes it impossible to.

She kisses him just like she did with Lou and Dean earlier, the embrace spreading the guilt throughout his system like a poison. Sam can feel it course through him immediately.

"But I _am_ very sure of one thing. You're never going to kill me, Sam," Elizabeth says to him calmly, her eyes turning a swirling red glow while staring him down. "You _are_ going to kill yourself though."

"I… I, uh…" Sam huffs out when he tries to fight the feeling creeping into his heart but he can't. It's a steady, hostile takeover. And then it hits. "I… it's all… all because of me."

Elizabeth smiles at him and lets her magic take him over for a moment, making sure he's fully under as she casually walks a circle around him.

"Everything. All of it," Sam says to the dirt. "Mom… it's my fault she's gone, my fault Dean and dad had to live without her. It was all because of me and my destiny. And Jess… Jessica. She was innocent in all this. She just loved me. She didn't even know who I really was…."

"And don't forget about that big brother of yours," Elizabeth eggs him on when she stands behind him and angles Sam's face until he's looking at his still and zoned out brother just feet away.

"Dean… shit… his life was ruined because of me," Sam sadly admits. "He watched me, kept me safe… he raised me. He, he gave up everything he ever h-had… for me. And I never did anything in return. I just complained and… and, and I left him. I left him alone with dad."

"You let Lucifer out, don't forget that," Elizabeth says lightly and with a smile.

"So many people died," Sam hung head somehow hangs even lower. "He killed so many… and I let him free…. All those people…."

"Because of you, Sam," she hammers the final nail. "Your existence has been nothing but a disaster to the human race. You may go and kill as much evil as you can… but it'll never make up for the damage done. The world will thank you for killing yourself." She looks him in the eye as she touches his cheek, making him go quiet much like Dean and Lou. "Good boy."

Elizabeth backs off a few steps and looks around her. Three hunters, legendary ones at that, all under her spell, coursing with guilt and ready to lead her back to the little savior that she doesn't believe in. She knows about Sammy. She knows _the_ real Bible and she knows about the Winchester Gospel. She's done her research on alternate religions as any deity should.

"Alright, everyone," she says with a grin. "I think it's time you head on home, don't you think?"

She disappears into thin air.

The three hunters standing dazed suddenly blink awake from their odd moment.

"What… just happened?" Lou asks first, her mind a hazy blur as she stands at a crossroads.

"Don't know." Dean rubs the back of his head with similar confusion while he looks around himself. "Why are we out here?"

"Damn it," Sam says to himself, looking at the broken wooden spoon on the ground at his feet with no idea why it'd be there. He doesn't care though because he just has one task on his mind. "Let's head back. We should get back to the cabin."

"Yeah, that's a good idea," Dean responds without any real drive behind his words. He just knows he's supposed to go home.

Lou jingles her keys. "Dean, follow us."

"Ok, uh. Yeah," Dean says absently.

The three pack it in while their minds are still cloudy and lost. They drive back to the cabin on auto-pilot because they were told to.

* * *

When Bobby comes back from the bathroom he finds Lizzy still sitting on the couch, Sammy asleep in her Indian-style lap. She has her elbows leaning onto her knees as she rubs her temples with tired stress.

"Liz."

"Mm?" she questions simply, not even opening her mouth to do so.

"I know I'm probably wasting my breath here, but why don't you go lay down for a bit?" Bobby suggests, her state not so good.

"Not happening." Lizzy sighs heavily as she opens her eyes to look at him. Her face just pleads for answers that he doesn't have and his heart breaks for her.

"You know he's gonna be fine," Bobby starts, sitting down next to her and looking down at the comfortably asleep baby. "Lou and Sam will handle this and they'll be back soon."

"I know, I know… he always squeaks out in the end…." Her hollow eyes meet his. "I just really didn't want him to go on this one. I had a bad feeling from the jump."

"So you're psychic now?" Bobby asks with levity.

"I kinda wish I was," Lizzy huffs a sullen laugh. "I would've seen this coming."

Bobby brings and arm around her shoulders and gives her a little squeeze, Lizzy leaning into him for comfort.

"This is what it's gonna be like, isn't?" she asks with true sadness. "Dean's gonna be gone all the time and I'm… gonna be here. Worrying. And not eating. Or sleeping."

"Can't say," Bobby honestly answers. "But I know that dumbass loves you two more than anything else in the world. If you want him out, really want him out… I think he'd be smart to listen to ya and get the hell out."

"But he can't," Lizzy says to him. "Not with Leviathan threatening the population. His kid won't live in a world with those things, he won't allow that."

"Isn't that a good thing?" Bobby challenges her to look at the other side of the coin.

"It's…" she trails a little and looks down at her sleeping son. Sammy looks remarkably like his father and smiles slightly. "It's a wonderful thing. I'm not saying it's bad that he cares about making sure Sammy has a world to live in. I am saying that… I want Dean to be around to enjoy that world too. I want him to be there for Sammy. And I… I just… I'm not ready to live without him. I never will be, whatever, but… just _not yet_."

Bobby keeps quiet with that one and simply nods. He gets it. When he lost Karen that was the one thing he could never stop thinking for a long while. They never got enough time. It was too soon to lose her.

"And I don't want him to miss every big moment Sammy will have," Lizzy keeps going. "He already missed his first few smiles."

"That ain't the important stuff."

"Sure feels pretty important," Lizzy rebuts immediately, knowing how exciting it was to see Sammy smile for the first time.

"Alright, fine. They are important. First steps, first smiles, first words… that's some pretty big stuff. But if he misses them, he misses them. That don't make Dean a bad dad. It makes him a really good one that he'd be willing to miss that kinda thing as long as Sammy stays safe with his momma."

Lizzy sighs when Bobby once more puts her world into perspective and shows her where she went wrong. "I just wish…"

"Cancer patients just wish they were healthy," he stops her in her tracks. "And the poor wish to be rich. We could play this game all day, hon, but it ain't gonna change. Nobody has the perfect life. Some have less luck than others but you take what you've been given and you deal with it. It ain't that bad."

Lizzy looks down at her Sammy, his body lax and asleep, and she realizes Bobby's right. "Yeah, I'm not dying… not today at least."

"There you go," Bobby huffs a laugh. "Bright side."

"But Dean might be," she rebuts. She locks eyes with Bobby and she can tell she made sense to him on this one. "And sometimes it is that bad."

His whole attempt backfires right then. Lizzy goes right back to her hunched back position, looking at her son with a face full of worry.

And Bobby can't respond. He has nothing to say. So instead he tightens his arm around her and sits there, giving the silent support she needs right now. Lizzy is like that. At times it isn't words that can help her but knowing that someone cares, that someone wants to be there for her, can change everything.

"I hope you've been eating your veggies and getting some exercise, Bobby," Lizzy suddenly says through the quick silence. "I have no idea what I would do without you."

The smallest flash of a smile shows up on his face right then as it's just too damn good to hear her say something like that. He knows they need him. Hearing them say it is just the icing on the cake.

The ever familiar rumbling of the Impala's engine suddenly can be heard off a ways as it comes up the dirt path to the cabin.

"About fucking time," Lizzy lets out as she picks up Sammy from her lap, putting his head on her shoulder so he can rest some more. She then gets up, Bobby following, and they make it to the front door.

Dean turns the key once he parks behind the Mustang and gets out of his car. He barely remembers the drive or why they all decided to make it when they did. All he knows is it's morning in Montana and he's back at the cabin… just like he was supposed to be.

"You know, a call would have been nice!" Lizzy's annoyed voice calls out as she rushes down the front steps of the cabin and makes her way quickly to her husband, son still in her arms.

Dean simply watches her with a blank face as she comes right up to him, hugging him with her free arm. His own arms never leave his sides and come around her, however, and her nerves never get a real chance to calm because of it.

"Dean?" Lizzy says his name with concern when he doesn't return the hug. She looks up at him, her hand on his jaw with her thumb stroking his cheek a few times. He looks down at her with nothing in his eyes. "Hey. Baby? You alright?"

The way Dean simply looks at her without the usual love in his green eyes unnerves her immediately.

"I'm fine." His voice is flat and without any character at all.

This is wrong.

"What the hell?" Lizzy asks, marching over to Sam and Lou as they get out of the Mustang. "What's wrong with him?"

"Who?" Sam asks, confused by her question.

"Dean! What the fuck is wrong with Dean? Didn't you fix the problem or whatever? Kill the Fury?"

"The who?" Lou asks, looking at her sister with complete loss.

"The Fury!" Lizzy yells with frustration and it hits her. Their faces. Lou and Sam look just like Dean does. Blank and lifeless. She hugs Sammy in closer to her and takes a few steps back. "Bobby!"

The older man is immediately at the door. He looks over the group and sees nothing too wrong.

"Bobby!" Lizzy calls again and turns around to see him standing there, shrugging with confusion. "Something's wrong."

"What?"

"Don't you see it!?" she asks, walking to the doorway to get away from the zombie-out group. "They're… absent. They aren't all here."

Bobby observes them meandering about, getting bags from the car without talking.

"I don't even know if they're them," she whispers, true fear in her eyes. "Here." She hands Sammy over to the only person that she trusts right now. Running inside she grabs some holy water and a silver knife.

"What are you doing?" Bobby questions her.

"Making sure they're really them," she says to him and heads right for Dean.

Dean squares his shoulders to her and looks her in the eye, unmoving and waiting patiently. So not her husband.

Lizzy quickly opens her flask and splashes a bit of water onto his face and head. She waits a second and nothing happens.

"You're not possessed," she says with a little surprise.

"No," Dean easily answers.

Eyeing him funny, Lizzy splashes Sam a little also on his way past her to the cabin. Nothing again.

"What the fuck?" Lizzy comments, glancing at Bobby before looking back at Dean. "Hot Shot, what's going on here?"

"Nothing," he shrugs, still a bit dazed.

"Can you give me your arm?"

"Why?"

"Trust me?" she asks him and without hesitating he thrusts his arm out at her. She takes it, pulling up his jacket sleeve and wielding the small silver knife she grabbed. "This'll hurt a little, ok?" Dean nods and she slices a small cut into his skin, no sizzling.

Lizzy's angry eyes shoot up to Dean and she grabs his arm extremely hard.

"What the hell is going on?" she says, her eyes on his hard. "Dean, you tell me right now what happened."

Dean shakes his head easily and keeps a calm face. "Nothing happened."

Lizzy sighs, "The last I heard from you… you were gonna kill yourself."

"I was?" Dean asks.

"Yes!" Lizzy shouts back and grabs his face. "You need to tell me what happened to you guys. Something's wrong."

He doesn't answer because he doesn't know how to.

"Are we safe?" she asks with sheer fear. "Is Sammy safe here with you like this?"

"Sammy…" Dean says as if trying to recall the name while glancing at the cabin. "Is he inside?"

She's horrified. He should be sprinting up the steps to say hello to his boy, not wondering if he was even there. "Get inside. Come on."

Lizzy pulls his arm towards the cabin and he follows without question. On their way inside they don't happen to see the figure just off in the shadows of the forest watching them closely.


	11. Momma Bear

"What the hell?" Bobby mutters as he looks around the living room area of the small cabin. Lou and Sam sit on the couch at opposite ends and Dean takes the chair. All three stare blankly off in space, none talking unless spoken to with a question they have to answer. They didn't even pick their own places to sit. They were guided there by Bobby and Lizzy one at a time.

"It's like they're zombified or something," Lizzy observes, seeing how they don't seem able to process independent thought even.

"Or hypnotized maybe?"

"Could be…. I have no idea…."

"But it ain't good," Bobby finishes for her.

"Not at all. And I think it ain't good for us to be here right now," Lizzy says to him as she takes Sammy out of his grandfather's arms. "I don't know what's about to happen here but… I feel like we should go. To be on the safe side."

"Sammy don't need to be here for this," Bobby agrees instantly. "Go pack up while I start reading more on the Furies. Hopefully The Three Stooges here all stay put."

"What about you?" Lizzy then worries.

"What about me?"

"Are you gonna be ok alone here?" Lizzy wonders. "What if they turn into something else and come after you… or the Fury shows up for them… or…."

"I'll be fine," Bobby brushes it off, knowing it could be really dangerous for him alone but would prefer it to putting Sammy in danger. "And even if I ain't I'd rather deal with it without the two of you getting in the way. Now git."

Lizzy looks over to Dean, her face wrinkled with second guessing, but Bobby stops her.

"You get outta here," he says to her. "He'll understand. Move."

She nods and runs off for the stairs, ready to pack and drive away from here as quickly as possible.

"Balls," Bobby mutters as he takes a seat at his desk again. He pulls out his large volume of obscure Greek gods and opens to the marked page. He had to have missed something. Clearly this thing messed with his kids but he doesn't remember reading anything about whacked out states of mind as a power. Maybe it's something unrecorded at all since most who encounter the Three Furies tend to not walk away from it. Dead people can't share their knowledge. But what if….

Bobby's head snaps up with wide eyes as the front cabin door is blown open with huge force. He stands up immediately as a beautiful woman walks in.

"Hello, children…. I'm home," she grins out, seeing her three under-the-influence subjects sitting in the room. She then looks to Bobby with glee. "Ooh… fresh meat."

She walks over to him with a lovely and confident saunter in her step.

"I ain't all that fresh," Bobby corrects her as he reaches for the canister of salt on his desk.

"Maybe not but I'm no ageist." She laughs to herself. "I can work with you easily."

"I'd rather you did," Bobby tells her, tying to buy time while thinking.

"But I have to. You do look like you've done some shit in your life after all," she rebuts, kinetically flinging furniture out of the way as she goes. With the flick of a finger one of the kitchen chairs scrapes across the floor until it hits the wall and cracks. "Busted a few heads." She sends his desk across the kitchen and it collides with the old refrigerator, making a leg break off. "And I'm sure you've been no saint. No hunter has."

Bobby pops the salt container. He whips the canister in his hand, showering the Fury with salt.

She pauses and waits as the granules rain down on her. She just stares at him with disappointment. "I'm a god, you dumbass," she tells him.

"Demi-god, actually," Bobby quips as he backs up, reaching behind him for a shotgun he placed there earlier. "Don't over sell yourself." As he catches movement by the staircase to the second floor he doesn't dare look on the chance that it's Lizzy. No tipping off the Fury.

Her eyes glow with swirling red. "Compared to the flawed, lowly human you are I'd say demi-god isn't so bad. You better watch your mouth."

Bobby grabs the shotgun behind him and quickly brings it around his front, aiming in a flash and firing a shell right into her chest, hoping to slow her down.

No dice. She barely flinches when she's hit. Instead she keeps marching right for him, her pace quicker now with her building anger.

Once in front of him she grabs him by the neck with both hands and presses him into the wall. She then stares him down hard, reading him. "My God, Robert Singer," she awes when she knows his guiltiest moments. "How do you function day to day with all that guilt? I've never seen anything like you."

She looks overwhelmed by him and Bobby can only try and fight back. He has his hands on hers, trying to pry them off but he can't. She's too strong.

"I almost feel bad doing this to you," she admits quietly before pulling him down to her and pressing her lips to his. Bobby stops fighting back and his body relaxes into the embrace.

Just as she's about to end the kiss, the Fury reaches out to the side with her free hand out of instinct and grabs the wooden implement that was just about to be stabbed right into her chest, effectively stopping it.

Lizzy knew something was deathly wrong the second she heard the crashing sound downstairs.

The Fury followed them. She must have followed them. She used them to lead her here, that had to be the plan.

"Fuck," Lizzy whispers and starts to move about the room as quietly as possible. She has to hide Sammy. She has to keep him safe somehow. She has to…

_Hello, children… I'm home._

"Ok, sweetie," Lizzy whispers as she listens to the female voice speaking to Bobby. She places her son in his carrier and straps him in, his eyes looking about with the loud noises in the cabin. "You're gonna stay quiet for mommy, right?" she asks of him, picking up the carrier and opening the closet door. She grabs her phone from her back pocket and turns on the flashlight feature, placing it on the wooden floor next to the carrier so Sammy's not alone in the dark.

She needs to keep him quiet. Thinking quickly she grabs a freshly made bottle from his bag by the door. "Thank God I just pumped, huh?" she smiles at him despite her fears. Even at three months she won't ever let on about feeling fear or anxiety to him if she can help it. Brave face. "Here, baby. You down this and be super quiet. No crying."

She sets up the bottle and props it up with a balled up jacket of Dean's that has been hanging above Sammy's head. Once he's eating she kisses his little cheek.

"I love you, sweetie. Stay quiet."

She then closes the door of the closet while feeling like the world worst mother. She then lines the door with salt while praying. "Cass, I could really use you right now. If you're kicking around somewhere like I think you are then now would be a great fucking time for a reunion."

That pull in her chest that she used to feel when trying to reach the angel shows up, like he's listening out there somewhere, but it's so weak. She knows Castiel isn't coming. She once more reminds herself mentally of what Dean told her. He's dead. Cass is dead and she needs to accept it.

She kicks her boots off and heads for the stairs silently. If she wants Sammy to stay safe then momma bear will be the one to kill the god that invaded their space. How dare this bitch come into their home like this anyways? And put her son in danger?

Momma bear says she's going down.

Lizzy listens as she makes it to the first floor, the Fury with her back to her luckily. She watches as furniture gets sent flying, realizing how powerful this being is. She's strong, very strong, and her son is clearly in some very serious danger now, right along with Bobby.

The Fury makes her way closer and closer to Bobby and seems very concentrated on him so Lizzy sees her opening. If she knows Sam as well as she thinks she does then he would have more than one weapon ready. That Boy Scout is always prepared and he was prepared for _three_ Furies. She spots his bag by the front door.

"And I'm sure you've been no saint," the fury keeps talking. "No hunter has."

Bobby sends a spray of salt into the air and it rains down on the Fury… to no effect. Lizzy heart plummets with this. Her son isn't safe _at all_.

"I'm a god, you dumbass."

"Demi-god, actually. Don't over sell yourself."

Lizzy knows that Bobby's running distraction for her. She better get moving, her feet taking her faster to the bag.

"Compared to the flawed, lowly human you are I'd say demi-god isn't so bad. You better watch your mouth."

She unzips the duffle quietly as can be, thinking her hunter training better all still be there. One year out of the game and she can still do the job more or less… though this is more than she was prepared for. She can still do it though. She thinks positively. She can do this.

And then the shotgun goes off. Her heart stops with the sound, her body flinching immediately before going statue still, glancing at the Fury with hopes that the blast would slow her down. Nope.

It's when the Fury grabs Bobby by the throat that she really starts to panic, forgoing care and caution for the need to make sure Bobby doesn't get the guilt trip of a lifetime and fall victim. She can't do this alone.

"My God, Robert Singer. How do you function day to day with all that guilt? I've never seen anything like you."

Her heart aches to hear that despite not having time to process this information at the moment. Hand in the bag, Lizzy feels that slight jump of hope in her chest when she was right. Sam has two more olive wood stakes fashioned from cooking utensils, just like she suggested. She tucks one inside the back of her jeans and covers it with her shirt before tightly gripping the other.

"I almost feel bad doing this to you."

Lizzy didn't get there in time. She watches the beautiful god press her lips to Bobby's, the man's body immediately reacting by slackening and falling under her pull.

No. Fucking. Way. She is not having her family taken from her. Lizzy marches right up to the Fury and pulls her arm back. She attacks, olive stake coursing through the air right towards the Fury's chest….

And it's stopped. When the Fury reaches out blindly and wraps her hand around the wooden spoon Lizzy freezes in fear.

The Fury ends her kiss with Bobby and looks right at him with a smile as she puts him down. She casually wipes the lipstick off his face with the thumb of her free hand as Lizzy takes a step back. "You must be Lizzy."

The Fury turns to look at her, checking her over once.

"No wonder Dean turned me down," she smirks. "Why go out to eat when you can get filet mignon at home, right?" She winks.

"Get out of my house," Lizzy says angrily, stepping back a bit more and swallowing hard. She hasn't been up against anything on her own in a very long time. This is scary, she hates to admit.

"This isn't your house. You don't have a house. You don't have a home. Really, there isn't a whole lot that you have."

"I… I killed her…" Bobby starts in on his ramblings already, the guilt hitting instantaneously.

"I'm warning you… get out. _Now_." She keeps her intimidating voice and does what she can to appear at least a little confident.

"_You're _warning_ me?_"

Lizzy just keeps her hard-edged stare in response.

"You shouldn't talk to me with such disrespect," the Fury says to her, stepping forward a bit as she snaps the wooden spoon now in her hands in half. She tosses it aside with a smile. "I am a god after all."

"You're just another piece of shit that's threatening my family is what you are," Lizzy spits out with anger. "I don't have to respect a damn thing about you."

The Fury stares at her a moment, narrow eyes trained on the bold woman as she thinks. In a flash, she brings her arm through the air and backhands Lizzy across the face. Lizzy flies backwards a few feet with the blow and lands on her side on the cabin floor. As she cups her face and groans with utter pain she expects to hear Dean go off, yelling and attacking with pure anger, or Lou to go into a blind rage… but she gets nothing. The four other hunters have gone completely bye-bye. She's truly on her own.

"You _will_ respect me," the Fury corrects her as she walks forward, kicking Lizzy in the ribs once she reaches her. "Or you'll die. One or the other."

"Uh," Lizzy grunts out with the fire in her side as she curls up. "I'd rather die."

"Easy enough," the Fury says to her, kicking her in the side again. This time Lizzy cries out when she can feel the snap in her ribs followed by the sharp, severe pain. Before she can wallow in that powerful level of anguish the Fury is picking her up by the neck and shoving her into a wall. Lizzy's head hits with force, dazing her for a second, but she rapidly returns her focus when she can hear muddled crying start up from the second floor.

The Fury grins with delight.

"You know what I find interesting," she says to Lizzy, her grip tight and cutting off her air slightly as they listen to the young cries. "The fact that you are still a hunter is interesting to me. That's a very irresponsible decision to make after having a child. I mean, what kind of mother are you?"

"The… fucking… best…" Lizzy struggles out and kicks her legs, catching the Fury in the side once. She flinches a little and her eyes burn red when the anger shows up.

"Hunters never learn, do they?" she fires out and uses her free arm to punch Lizzy square in the eye. She moans with pain again, her face scrunching with the agony of the sheer force the god has as her split skin high on her cheek begins to trickle blood. "You don't know where to draw the line. Maybe going after deities is a bad idea. Maybe you should have backed the fuck off!" She punches Lizzy again, this time in the mouth. "Hunters killed my sisters. My sisters!"

"We didn't do that," Lizzy struggles out, talking hurting far more than it should after the blow to the jaw.

"No, but it was your kind that did it," she explains, one more solid punch to her face for good measure. Lizzy actually whimpers aloud with the explosion of pain she feels. "It was your husband that came to town to kill me. _He_," she shouts, pointing at Dean in his seat just feet away. "Came for _me_! That was stupid! And do you want to know why that was stupid!?"

She pauses so Lizzy can hazard a guess but she doesn't. She's in too much pain.

"Because I know something that many powerful beings out there don't know just yet," the Fury warns, her voice calmer as she moves in close to Lizzy, speaking into her ear. "I know what you have upstairs in your closet."

Lizzy's eyes widen with fear.

"I know all about him," the Fury continues on, smiling at Lizzy evilly. "I know what he is. I know what he's going to be. I know what he's supposed to do. _And I don't like it_."

"He… has nothing… to do… with this," Lizzy struggles out, blood leaking out of the corner of her mouth, her face swelling already.

"Maybe not, no." Leaning closer, the Fury is just an inch from touching her lips to Lizzy's. "But I don't want the Second Coming happening to _my_ planet. I'm sick of the Bible claiming this world as its own. I have every right to be here so… Mom, I think I'm going to get rid of that little _problem _before he in fact becomes one for me."

"You touch him… I'll kill you…" Lizzy doles her warning, her anguished voice choppy and difficult.

"No, you won't," she says cockily. "You'll be too busy killing yourself."

And with that the last remaining Fury presses her lips hard to Lizzy's.

When the Fury pulls her lips away from Lizzy's she has a bright, triumphant smile on her face. She lets her grip on the hunter's neck go and she drops into a heap on the floor. The pain alone makes it impossible to move so instead she curls up into herself and groans in anguish, her entire body nearly pummeled at this point.

Satisfied and knowing that soon enough Lizzy will be on her feet looking to complete her personal guilt-driven suicide, Elizabeth walks over to the rest of the room. One at a time she touches each of their faces, bringing them out of their hazy trance, no longer delaying their terrible and crushing guilt from being felt. Immediately the room is a cacophony of muttered shame and remorse. They all begin to lose it one at a time. Dean searches for his keys to leave and get to a new crossroads, Lou heads for her duffle to grab her silver knife, Sam plans on finding some lighter fluid to set himself ablaze much like his mother and Jessica, and Bobby starts to wander about, unsure of which suicide method is more deserving over the others after all he's done in his life.

"Wonderful," Elizabeth cheers to herself as she walks nonchalantly to the staircase, ready to go get the little savior in the closet. This could not have worked out better.

Foot on the first step, the Fury can taste the victory… until it comes to a crashing halt. "Gah!" she gasps with total surprise. Reaching behind herself she can feel the scoop end of a large, wooden kitchen spoon sticking out of her back.

"I told you…" Lizzy wheezes with pain and injury, leaning her weight into the wall as her legs shake with exhaustion. "Don't… fucking touch… my son."

The Fury convulses violently. Her body spasms and twitches, falling to the ground. A red light glows in her chest, getting brighter and brighter by the second until it blows outward with a loud bang.


	12. All Hail Lizzy

Dean inhales sharply, blinking rapidly a few times as he stops whatever it is he was just doing. What the hell _was_ he just doing again? He looks at his right hand and sees his Impala keys. His jacket is on and the already packed weapons duffle is over his shoulder. He's at Rufus' cabin in Whitefish. When the hell did that happen?

He turns back towards the rest of the cabin instead of continue on his path out the front door. Lou is looking at the large silver knife in her hand with slight confusion, Sam is sniffing his clothing and wondering why it smells like butane, Bobby has a 9 mm in his hands, and Lizzy…

"Fuck!" Dean loudly worries as he drops his bag and rushes to her destroyed form, catching her just as she starts to fall to the ground. "L! What happened to you!?"

He glances at the unmoving body of the Fury on the floor and his eye grow wide. He focuses on his wife again and recognizes the severe swelling and bleeding of just her face alone.

"Dean… Sammy's… crying," she tries to get out through her labored attempt to breathe and her damaged face, hearing her son wailing after the loud supernatural explosion sounding throughout the house. "Get him… him first…."

"I'll get him," Lou rushes out after watching Dean hold up her sister. In an instant she's ditching her knife and bounding up the stair past her beat up best friend, knowing Dean can handle that on his own. That nephew of hers sounds upset as hell so she has to go to him.

"Mm! No! Ah! _Fuck_!" Lizzy lets out through a voice muffled by facial swelling as Dean holds her too tightly. "Ribs… broken… fuck…."

"Son of a bitch," Dean complains with her terrible state as he holds her up differently, keeping pressure off her ribcage. Bobby runs over to help as Sam heads to his room to take off his flammable-liquid covered clothing, not looking to risk a fire after everything else. "Elizabeth did all this?"

"Who the… fuck is Elizabeth?" she wonders, limping to the couch as her men guide her carefully.

"The dead Fury on the ground," he explains.

"Oh, uh… yeah. She got… the upper hand… for a second there." Lizzy then yells out when he lowers her to the couch, every movement hurting more than the last.

"Shit, go slow. _Slow_," Dean controls her pace and makes her really take her time until she's lying down across the couch. Once in place Bobby takes off for the basement without a word. "At least it looks like you got the last laugh," Dean comments. "That bitch is dead as a doornail."

"She wanted Sammy," Lizzy says, taking shallow breaths so she won't crumble with agony. "She went after him… and I… I couldn't…."

"L, don't talk," Dean says to her, knowing it has to be extremely painful for her to do so. Her fat, split lip and bruised already jaw have to feel terrible, none the less whatever else he can't see. "And don't move. I need to check you over."

"Sammy… ok?" Lizzy asks Dean, eyes still darting about while looking for him.

"He's fine," Lou promises when she comes down the stairs, Sammy crying in her arms. "Just startled."

Lizzy exhales the best she can through the sharp and strong stabbing in her chest. Sammy's safe. Closing her eyes, the mother listens to his sounds of unrest with pure delight. He's alive and she certainly did her job.

"Don't pass out!" Dean warns her, rubbing her cheek with his thumb while being cautious not to hurt her further. "Open your eyes, L."

She squeezes her lids shut when the pain of everything starts to strengthen now that she knows Sammy's good. Her anxiety over his wellbeing clouded everything else, but now that it's gone it all hits with a vengeance. She's never felt this terrible and beat in her life.

"You could have a concussion," he tries again. "Just hang in there, stay awake while I check you out."

"Still look hot enough?" she wonders after he says he'll be checking her out. She slits her eyes open to look at him.

"You always look hot enough," Dean slightly grins with her comment.

"Slick," Lizzy says and huffs a laugh that has her moaning in anguish immediately, curling into her busted up side.

"Baby, don't talk," Dean tells her again when he can see her state. "Just breathe, ok? Is it hard to breathe?"

"Hurts," she grumbles, looking at him with her good, not-swollen-shut eyes. "Broke at least a couple ribs. Bitch kicked me. Couple times."

"But you can take a full breath if you tried?"

"Think so…"

"Good," Dean says and checks off a complication from the list. No collapsed or pierced lung.

"Here," Bobby says, handing over a big case that was Rufus' first aid kit. "He's well stocked. Should have everything you need."

"How much ice is in that freezer right now?" Dean questions as he pops the med kit open on the floor by the couch.

"I'll see what we have," Bobby answers and walks off.

"He's really… ok?" Lizzy struggles out, her good eye looking at Lou to make sure now that Sammy's cries have died down.

"Lizard, this kid is untouched," Lou says to her sister with a smile, bouncing the baby in her arms. "Relax because he's perfectly fine."

"Because of you," Dean tells her, kissing her unharmed cheek after ripping open an alcohol swab. "You saved our boy."

Lizzy nods slightly and closes her eyes again. She needs to rest so badly….

"Eyes open," Dean remind her as he presses the swab into her split lip. Her eyes pop wide with the burn. "You ok?"

"Can… handle it," Lizzy tells him but isn't sure if she can. It's been a damn long time since she's had her ass this thoroughly kicked.

"Bobby?" Dean calls out and opens the pill bottle he found in the bottom of the kit.

"Yeah?"

"Water."

"Yeah," the older man responds from the kitchen and fills a glass at the sink.

"Rufus had the good stuff," Dean smirks at her despite his devastation that she's in the shape she's in and shakes the pill bottle.

"I know," Lizzy says in return, her voice getting more muffled by the second as the swelling gets worse. Dean gives her a questioning look. "Check… the doctor…"

Dean reads the name on the bottle. "Dr. Elizabeth Noonan. You sly bitch." He laughs lightly while popping the top and pouring two Percocet pills into his palm. "Didn't know you were Rufus' connection."

"Stocked him… every few years."

"Here," Bobby says as he hands Dean the glass and places a big metal bowl of ice on the floor next to him along with some dishrags.

"Alright," Dean says, dropping the pills in Lizzy's hand. "Come on, sit up."

"No…" Lizzy complains, the thought of moving just awful to her.

"You gotta, tough girl. We'll do this quick," he tells her, bringing an arm around her back and slowly easing her up just enough as she moans with pain. "Ok, nice and easy." Lizzy puts the pills in her mouth and steals the glass, struggling to swallow them down with her sore jaw.

"You got it?" Dean asks her, grabbing a kitchen rag to soak up the water she wasn't able to get down off of her chin.

"Yeah." She looks at him, watching his concerned face and gentle movements as he begins to clean the blood off of her face and wonders when it was he grew up so damn much. It happened while she was watching, she knows that much, but it's still just so good to see. He doesn't go into a rage. He doesn't lose it at all. He doesn't run for a bottle of whiskey. He's just plain taking over and being there for her. "I'm glad you're home."

Dean looks at her funny. "Your ass is a mess and all you got is you're glad I'm home?"

Lizzy tries to smile but fails, groaning instead when her face flares up.

"Ok, no more talking," Dean says to her once more, despite getting the picture that she's not about to shut up any time soon, and eases her back down. It takes some time but they manage to find a comfortable position for her, one that seems to hurt less. Dean starts wrapping up bundles of ice and placing them on her face first, covering her left side almost completely as it's all damaged. No broken bones, luckily, but the swelling and bruising already there is concerning enough.

He touches her ribcage, immediately feeling the shift of broken bones. Three to be exact. When he looks at her face he can see the tears leaking from her eyes with the pain of his probing.

"I'm sorry," he says in a down tone, wiping up her tears with a rag before kissing her cheek again.

"S'ok," she answers, knowing it had to be done.

Dean then uses the pen light in the kit to check her pupils. "Hey, no concussion!"

"Hard head," Lizzy gets out and he smiles at her.

"I thought I said no talking."

"You forget?"

Dean then outright laughs at that. Lizzy's always been a talker, something he used to complain about when they were younger. "Guess I did."

"Sammy need anything?" Lizzy wonders, her mind one track right now.

"Relax about Sammy," Dean tells her, placing a larger homemade ice pack onto her ribs, Lizzy immediately crying out in pain when it just touches her. "Easy! Easy… you're ok, L."

"Shit," she pants out with very shallow breaths as deep breathing only hurts far too much. She drops down, muscles going lax little by little, and she settles in with the pain all over and waits for the Percocet to work. "Is he hungry?"

Dean shakes his head before glancing over to Lou. She's pacing around the room with his son, Sammy's eyes drooping as his crying has subsided and he's content now.

"Sammy is doing just fine. He's about to fall asleep so he's good." Dean pauses his ministrations to place a hand on her unharmed cheek, looking right at her with nothing short of total awe and respect. "You did great, momma. Now you need to take it easy."

"Can't," she says as her eyes close despite her words. "I should have been nicer."

Dean pauses and looks at her with total confusion. "Nicer?"

"To you."

"What are you talking about?" he wonders, his thumb rubbing her cheek back and forth as he listens.

"When you left. I was mean," she says, her voice wavering. "And then… thought I lost you."

"You didn't. I'm right here," he says, using as soothing a voice as he can.

"I called you… a bad dad. Said you… were… abandoning us…."

"Eh, you were angry," Dean smirks and brushes away the thought.

"You're a good father," she says, her voice betraying her as it falters. Her eyes spill over while still closed. "I was… a bitch."

"No, you were right," Dean tells her. "I shouldn't have left. If I hadn't…." It dawns on him right then. "You wouldn't be like this."

"I don't hate you," Lizzy says to him while half passed out yet still distressed over everything. "I could never hate you."

"No, I don't think you hate me," Dean assures her, his voice even and quiet as he tries to bring down her upset. "I know how to make you feel way too good for you to ever hate me."

She smiles slightly and laughs once before the pain hits and makes her groan from deep with it.

"Sorry," Dean says immediately. No joking while she's beat up.

"Just don't… be mad at me," she says in the most basic way as he eyes just slit open enough to look at him. "I can't do you being mad at me."

"How could I be mad at you?" Dean asks with a wrinkled face as he scoots closer to her on the floor. "You had every right to be pissed. I should have stayed. And you fixed my mistake. Our son is alive because of you. We all are." He presses a kiss to her forehead. "L, you're my hero."

Her face scrunches up with emotion for that comment. "I want to kiss you but it'd hurt too much," she says through a sob.

Dean lets out a solid laugh at her for that one. "Rain check then. Baby, you're wrecked. Go to sleep. We'll watch Sammy and I'll patch you up. Just get some shut eye."

"Stay here?" Lizzy asks him, reaching out and grabbing his forearm.

"Where do you think I'd go?" Dean questions her hazy mind, the drugs taking over little by little along with her injuries making her mind scramble.

"Just… don't leave… ok?" she repeats her request as even she isn't sure what she's requesting. All she knows is that right now she wants Dean there, right by her side. That's it.

"I'll stay right here," he promises her as she finally gives in to the exhaustion of the night and the medication she took.

Washing a hand down his face as he looks at her, her face so damaged at this point that she's barely recognizable, Dean has to wonder what the hell comes next for them now. Hunting brought this evil right to their doorstep, to where his family lives. To where his wife that doesn't want to hunt anymore lives… and to where his Sammy lives. Something came after his boy today.

This is exactly why he never wanted to have a family, not really. Yes, he always wanted one, but that was only if he'd gotten out of the life. He hasn't. And Sammy's living in this evil, scary, shit world now.

Dean sits back, his bent up knees in front of him as he leans his side into the foot of the couch. He lets her keep her hold on his forearm as she drifts off, the fact that it took mere seconds once she knew her son was safe and Dean wasn't angry with her not lost on him in the least. He closes his own eyes and lets his head hang down, sighing with the lost feeling he has about his entire life in the moment.

What the fuck does he do now?

He lifts his sights when he feels someone take a seat next to him on the coffee table.

"Don't start that," Lou says to him as she settles a sleeping Sammy in her arms.

"Do what?" he questions her with confusion.

"That whole second guessing thing," she says to him knowingly. "You weren't wrong."

"How the hell can you say that?" Dean questions with fire, looking at Lizzy again. "Look at her."

Lou sighs. "It looks bad right now, I know…"

"Because it is bad," he spits through a whisper.

"The Furies are all dead though. No one else will die."

Dean looks back at her with a devastated face. "My family almost did. And that's not worth it to me."

Lou nods her understanding despite her disappointment. "But… the Leviathan…"

"Screw them," Dean says, peering at the innocent and sleeping face of his son. "I'm… I-I'm out."

"Out?" Lou checks, not sure she heard right.

"I'm fucking out," he confirms for her. "I am _not_ doing this to them ever again. Never again."

Lou takes a moment, knowing how delicate this whole situation for Dean is. She knows how devoted to family he is and how hard he loves them. She also knows how vengeful the Winchesters can be, especially when something fucks with their lives. She needs to tow a very thin line here in getting him to realize that the Leviathan are going to need to be taken care of for him to quit. But that's an argument for another day.

When she sees Sam standing in the back of the room, listening to everything and piecing the night together after changing his flammable clothes, she realizes there's another argument that she needs to have before the one with Dean. Sam's steeled and angry face he has while looking right at her proves it'll be a doozy and her stomach hurts instantly.

"Here," Lou says and shifts Sammy in her arms, handing him over to his father. "I'll bring you the carrier in a little bit. Just holler if you need anything since… I get the feeling you two aren't going far tonight."

"Yeah… uh, thanks," Dean says, pulling Sammy into him with his head on his shoulder. The little boy squirms just a bit before falling right back asleep, Dean's heart suddenly feeling a lot fuller than it did just seconds before. It's just plain good to be as one, the three of them. With the feeling of being whole and so loved he wonders how it was that he left in the first place.

Lou gets up and stops before walking away. She sighs and rolls her eyes before bending over to kiss Dean on the cheek. She stands up tall and sees the surprised face Dean gives her. "Thanks. For backing me up and everything."

Dean makes a funny face. "You backed me up… remember?"

She thinks back to the original discussion days ago about heading out on the case together. These were his friends and he was the driving force, not her. But it felt so good to get out and try to help. To get back to it. To hunt…

"Right. So… you're welcome, douche bag," she says with a straight face and walks away. She doesn't look back, just locks eyes with Sam and heads for their bedroom, silently telling him to follow her.

Settling on the floor where he is, Sammy in his arms and his beat to shit wife by his side, he exhales for the first time all day. He's been an emotional mess, he knows that for sure despite not remembering all of it. But it's good to be home now. This is all he's needed from the second he drove off to check out Wade and Buck's death.

His phone beeps and cuts into his quiet moment. Pulling his phone out of his back pocket with some shifting and effort, Dean checks the message. A text. From Lizzy. Hours ago.

Opening it up he sees the picture of his son's face, lit up and bright with a giant smile plastered across it.

Instantly Dean has his own grin seeing it because even the most hardassed hunter in the world couldn't look at that and not smile. But then he realizes that he missed it. He wasn't there for that moment. He was hunting.

The smile long faded, upset is what Dean is now. This text tells him everything. He looks down at Sammy in his arms, the kid looking bigger than when he left, and his mind is completely made.

Hunting will not come first again. Nothing will come before being there for his family. He will never miss another milestone because of the evil in this world. He'll be right there to see it firsthand.

* * *

Lou sits on their bed in the small room of the cabin, her form hunched and smaller than usual with her pending doom. They haven't talked about the whole Amy thing yet and at this point it's eating her up so badly that she has to confess. She can't live like this and she can't keep lying to Sam like this.

She looks over to him as he stands there, back leaning against the closed door with his arms crossed over his chest. He looks angry.

"I need to talk to you about something," Lou starts, her eyes darting around with her guilt.

"About Amy?" Sam says with fire in his voice.

Her focus snaps onto him with shock.

"About how you killed her behind my back?" Sam tacks on, his face stone and cold.

"How did you…"

"The Fury's spell or whatever it was," Sam says to her, pushing off the doorway and stepping closer to her. "You don't remember but you were about stab yourself through with a silver knife… because that's how you killed _Amy_."

Lou looks down at her hands in her lap with shock. She wasn't ready for it to go like this.

"You said you trusted me!" Sam shouts in her face as he points a finger at her. "You promised me you would follow my lead!"

"And I felt like your lead was wrong," Lou says in a shaky voice.

"It wasn't!"

"To me it was!" she tried to defend herself. "Sam, she said that she'd never do it again…"

"And I believed that!"

"And I didn't! She also said she'd stay put in Bozeman and call if it ever happened again but by eight o'clock that night she'd already checked into a motel in Helena. She wasn't ever gonna call you. She already lied."

"Doesn't mean she would've killed again!" Sam fires out as he grabs a pillow from their bed.

"What the hell are you doing?" Lou questions him.

"I can't"

"You can't what?" she pries on, watching him take a blanket from the wooden chest in the corner of the room before snatching up his jacket from next to her on the bed.

"I can't talk to you right now," he says with anger, heading for the door.

"Sam…."

"I can't even be around you right now!"

Lou just looks at him with a horrified, beyond hurt face. "I-I don't… just… please listen."

"I can't do this," Sam says with finality and yanks the door open. "I can't do this anymore." He then slams it behind him and Lou's left in the silent room confused and jarred.

Sam isn't someone that shuts down like this. He deals. He speaks his mind. He swings a fist. But he doesn't run away.

Well, maybe he does. He ran away from his family for college, he ran away from everything when Dean died, he ran when he thought he had to get out after the demon blood… Sam is actually _very_ good at running away.

But not from her. He's always run _towards_ Lou. Never away.

She inhales deeply once after realizing that, for a minute straight of sitting still and in shock, she didn't breathe at all. Lou is no stranger to fighting matches. Having been in several her whole life with how difficult her personality can be, usually she just lets these moments slide right off her back no problem. But this is different. This feels horrible.


	13. Daddy Issues for Days

Sam storms though the first floor of the cabin, blanket, jacket, and pillow in hand, and marches for the front door.

"Hey!" Bobby yells at him and makes Sam pause midstride. "Why the hell are you slamming doors?"

Sam just stares at him with pure anger. "I can't be near her right now!" he explains simply as he points to his bedroom door where Lou is. He then heads for the front door.

When that one slams shut too Bobby just glances over to Dean. "You got any idea on what that hissy fit's about?"

Dean closes his eyes as he recalls the conversation he had with Lou in the car. The kitsune.

"I got an idea," Dean says and moves to get up and go after his brother. But then he remembers Lizzy's hand latched onto his forearm and his son is in his arms. "Shit."

"Sit tight," Bobby grumbles to Dean as he pauses cleaning up the mess the Fury left to head for Lou's room. "Lemme see what I can do first."

"You sure you wanna do that?" Dean asks with a little bit of levity.

Bobby smiles, knowing what Dean's saying. What old man in his right mind wants to go chat it up with an emotional girl? But Bobby's been here before and really, after a few years, it's not so scary or awful. "I know these girls well enough. They ain't all that scary anymore, not to me."

"Yeah, well, when you're done with that chick-flick moment you wanna go talk to the other girl sulking in the car out front?" Dean jokes, looking for a lighter moment real quick. "Samantha might be ragging in again after seeing that hissy fit."

"Shut up," Bobby responds gruffly yet with a smile.

Dean just nods at him and lets him handle it. As much as he loves his brother he also loves his wife and kid. He's torn but maybe sticking with the two is better than going after the one. Plus, he knows Sam. When that worked up it's best to give him a second… even if he himself doesn't always listen to his own advice and usually goes after him. Maybe that's why it's always a blow out with them….

Leaving the main room, figuring he can ditch the rest of the mess the Fury made for a second since he already dragged the body out back, he heads for the bedroom. He knows Lou well enough. She needs a shoulder when something like this happens and she doesn't handle people being unhappy with her well at all. Since Lizzy's down for the count he'd better step in there.

Knocking on the door lightly a couple times, the room inside remains quiet.

"Lou?" Bobby asks, getting no response again. "Lou?"

He waits and can hear her moving on her bed a little but still no return.

"I can hear ya movin' in there."

"I'm here," she tells him, her voice quiet and not at all the strong voice she usually has.

"Then I'm comin' in," he warns and opens the door. He finds her sitting with her back to him, body sagging with sadness.

Bobby takes a seat with his feet on the ground, sitting on the side of the bed with his shoulder to her back. "So you gonna tell me what all this is about or ya wanna be a teenage girl a little more?"

"I fucked up," Lou says in a small voice that lets him know she's crying.

"And how did you fuck up?"

"I killed Amy."

"You killed someone?" he questions with alarm at the very idea. He knows she's been affected and rough around the edges with her experience but he never thought she'd kill someone.

"A kitsune," she says and sniffles, not looking at him still.

"Well, that sounds about right."

"Sam asked me not to," she explains. "We went after her because Sam knew her and knew she had spiked. They were friends or something as kids. Fuck… the story is complicated but the point is that Sam told me not to kill her and I did anyways. I did it behind his back and he just found out. And he's… he's…"

"Don't say angry 'cause that ain't good enough."

"Oh God," Lou lets out a sob. "I fucked it up. Jesus, what a mess. I'm a fucking mess."

"Why are you a mess?"

"Because I suck!" she tells him, turning to look him in the eye for the first time. "I suck! My whole life all I've done is fuck things up and run. Men and commitment, that shit is scary to me. You guys are all scary to me."

"Oh, I'm not so scary," Bobby tries to lighten it up for her but fails.

"And I finally, _finally_ get over my fears enough to let Sam in and I dive in head first and... the first thing I do is I ruined it."

"Why are you so scared of that, Lou?" Bobby questions, knowing there has to be more to this whole phobia than she lets on. "What the hell is so scary about Sam of all guys?"

She just pauses and looks at him. It's not an easy question he asks. "It's complicated."

"Ain't it all?" Bobby answers, shaking his head. "Look, I ain't asking for the full rundown, ok? But I know daddy issues when I see them, hon. I got enough of them to fill the Grand Canyon myself. But the longer you hang onto that shit… the longer it'll take for you to ever be happy."

"_You've_ hung onto that shit," Lou turns it around as she wipes her wet eyes.

"And do I look like the picture of happy to you?" he turns it right around.

Lou's eyes spill over once more. "I don't want to hurt him but…."

"Then don't," Bobby cuts her off. "You don't gotta tell me about it at all but if there's someone on this planet that can understand parents messin' them up I got a feeling there's a tall guy trying to sleep in the back seat of his car that can understand ya."

Lou shakes her head no, scared to ever open up like that. She doesn't even like crying and she's already doing that.

"Well, until you do I don't really know how this is gonna work… and I certainly ain't gonna stand for yet another heartbreak for Sam. He's had enough."

Lou covers her face with her hands and cries with a new wave of sorrow and anxiety. She knows Bobby's right.

"You know I'm right, don't ya?" he asks, sure of what she's thinking. She just nods behind her hands. "Ok. You take some time and get yourself together. Then head out there and open up for once. You actually have people that care enough about you that they'll listen and they ain't gonna judge. We're all messes, not just you."

He pats her on the shoulder a couple times and stands up to leave. He stops when he hears her speak.

"Bobby, I…" she pauses and sighs, remembering what Sam told her. "I… love you." She forces a smile through her tears.

Bobby turns to look at her with wide eyes. He stares at her, unsure of what to say exactly.

"Alright, awkward," Lou says when he makes her feel strange for saying it by not responding.

"I… Lou, I… I'm not used to hearin' that…"

"Well, it's true. I'm sorry I never said it before. I've been told I need to… say that stuff. And not feel weird about it."

"That's good advice," Bobby says in return. "Maybe someday I'll figure out how to do that too." He winks at her and she gets the message. He does love her too but maybe having a few more decades on her with being closed up so much makes him unable to say it in return. But he loves her like his own. She knows it.

Bobby leaves the room and lets her compose herself and Lou sits there, thinking everything over and composing her thoughts. Daddy issues. She does have them. Maybe Sam would understand her better if she spilled them. Maybe he wouldn't be so weirded out when she struggled to tell him she loves him or tries to be comfortable with things like public displays of affection or even just cuddling.

But she hasn't even told Lizzy all of this stuff so… she's terrified that this is how she has to deal with things.

* * *

Almost two hours of laying in the backseat of the Impala, blanket draped over himself as he stares up at the ceiling, and he's still at a loss.

Amy's dead. How is that possible? She was such a good person when he'd met her years ago, and yes, she _is_ a person. He'll never see her as the monster that everyone else does. He saw the real her, the caring her that had a terrible life with a controlling parent just like him. He understood her and when she stood up for what she believed and killed her mother to save him… that was the moment he realized he needed to do the same. Not that he should kill his father exactly, but he needed to stand up to him and get out of the life he was in, just like Amy did.

And now, the girl that tough him so much is gone. Lou killed her.

She betrayed his trust. Out of the few people he has in his life he never thought she'd lie and go behind his back like this. He'd expect this of Dean. Hell, he's _used_ to that from Dean at this point. Then again, Lou's just like Dean so maybe he should have predicted this.

No. He shouldn't have seen this coming.

She lied to him. She lied. And that hurts even more than Amy being dead. He can see the perspective Lou has on the issue. He doesn't agree but he gets it. But the lying… he's been lied to by everyone his whole life. Demons pretended to be his friends and allies his whole life. His dad lied about his real job and the truth about what's out there for years… and exactly what it was that Azazel did to him. Ruby lied on a daily basis. Dean's lied a million times. God lied to him for fucks sake… and now Lou's one of them.

Lou. The woman he's been waiting four years for. The woman that's turned his life around and made it completely better when it should be shit piled on shit with a side of shit. She was supposed to make it all better for as long as they both were breathing… but she's betrayed him instead.

Maybe he's making too much out of it. It was just one lie. A big one, but still. She has conviction, that's a plus. She stands for something. And she follows through.

But she _lied_. What's her determination and pride worth if she's a liar?

Sam sighs and rolls onto his side, his tall frame crunched up in the backseat. It's a shame he didn't think about this problem before letting his anger issues take over and make the decision for him to leave.

His eyes fly wide open when he hears the front passenger door open with a squeal. Someone gets into the car, pulling the door shut behind them. Sam leans up and can see the bright blond back of her head and sighs loudly, pressing the side of his face into his pillow again, closing his eyes.

Lou peeks back at him and can see him ignoring her. It's childish in her eyes but she understands it. He just doesn't want to deal with her right now but Bobby was right. She has some things she needs to say before she loses him for good.

"Giant, you don't have to talk to me. I know how mad you are and you have every right to be. But I really need you to listen. I have to explain some stuff… that's not easy for me to… say. But you deserve to know why I am the way I am. Especially since the way that I am is so… fucking difficult. And I don't… I feel like if I don't tell you, then you'll leave me and… for once… I don't want someone to go."

Sam opens his eyes and looks up at the back of her head, curious as ever.

"I'm sorry I lied to you," Lou says, keeping her eyes out the windshield in front of her. "In my life… I've been shown that telling the truth is not a good thing. I've had to hide stuff before, from someone I loved so much, and… and I know it was the right choice but it sucked. It sucked so hard. I just… I never wanted you to know about Amy. I thought I was doing the dirty work you couldn't handle doing for the greater good. I thought I was doing the right thing but my guilt was crushing me and it was ruining us. I'm really sorry for that. This wasn't a reflection of my trust in you even though I had a, a moment of… second guessing. It was a reflection of my… seriously damaged self doing what I do best. I sabotage things. I sabotage all my relationships."

When she glances back at him Sam's now sitting up with his back against the driver's side back door, looking right at her with a face full of curiosity. That will always be what gets Sam. She shifts sideways and looks right at him in return, knowing this will make her confessions harder. But he's looking at her. He listening to her. She needs that good sign.

"I don't want you to be just another guy I ruin things with," she tells him with full honesty. "That would… I can't handle that. Losing this." She points between the two of them.

"Why do you do that?" Sam finally speaks up, no harsh edges. "Why do you ruin relationships?"

"I… I just… fuck! I hate this," Lou says with sheer frustration when the words don't form and she feels so on the spot.

"Lou," Sam says with a stern sounding tone, getting her full attention. "Just talk to me. Why do you do that?"

"My dad was a fucking asshole," she blurts out loud, exhaling hard as if she's held onto that for far too long. She breathes in steady and out again, feeling the weight finally start to lessen a little.

"How so?" he questions, his worry growing by the second.

"He was a cheater."

Sam leans forward while putting his feet on the floor of the car. "He cheated on your mom?"

"You already know he did! He was Lizzy's biological fucking dad! He had a fucking _kid_ with another woman and never told my mom!" she shouts at him and immediately realizes that she let her anxiety get to her. "I didn't mean… to yell at you. Shit. I can't even do _this_ right without fucking it up…."

"You're doing fine," Sam says and reaches over the front seat to take her hand. He holds it tight between his two larger ones, showing her support when he knows how absolutely crushing this is for her.

Lou nods and looks at their hands, the sign she needed that maybe this fight was just a little speed bump in their longer road instead of a dead, abrupt end. If that's true then he deserves to know why she's do damaged. He deserves to understand her decisions and get that none of her problems have anything to do with him.

"Lizzy's mom… Cathy wasn't the only woman he cheated on mom with," Lou admits. "I don't even know how many it was and I don't want to. It's probably a lot."

She hangs her head as if it's her own fault her father did these things and Sam doesn't get it quite yet. "How did you know?"

"He slipped up. When I was in middle school I came home early after eating dinner at Lizzy's one night while mom and Derek were at a little league game. I was heading up to my room when I heard my dad on the phone in my parents' room, he didn't hear me come in. He was on the phone talking to some chick. I could hear her voice from the other end. I'd never heard it before but he called her Vicky. We didn't know any Vicky's. He said he was excited to see her the next weekend and… I didn't get it at first because he was supposed to be on a business trip that next weekend… but after a few minutes I figured it out. Vicky _was_ the business trip."

Her hand starts to shake in his hold and Sam's grip tightens.

"He told her… he said he… l-loved her before he hung up," Lou says, her voice cracking. "That bastard told some slut he loved her. And he said he loved my mom later that night in front of me and Derek. I wanted to puke. My mom never did anything to deserve that. She was a good mom and a good wife. I don't know why he did that to her."

Lou wipes her eyes as she turns away from him, not ever wanting to have him see her like that. She's stronger than that. She _has_ to be stronger than that.

"If he was unhappy then he should have just said something," she keeps going. "Why didn't he just say something and end it? Be fair?"

Sam grabs her chin and pulls it back to face him. He looks her right in the eyes and tells her, "She didn't deserve it."

"No shit," Lou sniffles.

"And neither did you."

Her heart melts a bit when he tells her that. He gets it. He understands what she's tell him and that's really what she needed from him.

"I told him I knew," Lou confesses to him and Sam's eye widen with her strength. "Right before I left for college I grew some balls… and told him I'd known for years. Told him about Vicky. Told him about how I knew there were others."

"What did he say?" Sam asks with awe that she had the strength to do such a thing.

"What could he say!? I was his daughter. If any dude ever did that to me he'd kill them… but he did it to mom anyways," she says and swallows hard, remembering her father's face when she confessed. He looked ghost white and horrified. "The only thing he could think…. he just asked why I never told mom."

"Why didn't you?"

"Because… she was happy," Lou explains, tears falling faster. "God, all those years… mom had no fucking clue. Not one. Dad was… too smart to get caught. It's were I get it from."

"You couldn't lie like that, though," Sam rebuts and she just looks at him with silent thankfulness that he trusts she wouldn't ever be so devious.

"But I have. I've lied to guys. I've snuck around and done the very same thing my dad did every single time a relationship got serious," she admits and hopes she isn't killing what little trust he may have in her left.

"If you hated what your dad did then why do the same thing?" Sam asks, not understanding this perspective. Dean was this guy. Repeat dad's mistakes despite hating the way his father was at times. Sam wasn't that guy. He did the opposite of everything his dad did out of spite alone.

"Because…. If, if I do it first… then I can't get hurt," Lou explains. "No guy can't hurt me if I ruin things before they can. Not if _I'm_ the distrustful one."

Sam nods, seeing this explanation as a very intelligent breakdown of her problems. At least Lou's extremely self-aware.

"But I could never be as evil as dad was," Lou assures him. "What he did to mom? Fuck. When I say she was a hippy I mean it. She was in Jane-World where everything was sunny and I just… I never had it in me to crush her like that." She lets out a pitiful sob at the thought. "Knowing dad cheated on her, several times with several women by that point… holy fuck, she would have lost it. She'd be so sad and I was not going to be the one that did that to her. Dad did that. Why should I have to upset her like that?"

"You shouldn't have to."

"Damn fucking straight!" Lou bursts out before inhaling deep and releasing one slow breath. "But I regret it now. I never told her and she went to her grave thinking my dad was the damn moon in the fucking sky. It sucks."

"But at least she was happy," Sam interjects.

"Yeah… but I wasn't. That guilt ate me for years. I had to live with that while Derek and mom never knew. And dad just kept doing it… and the worst part was, I-I just couldn't hate him as much as I wanted to. I loved him so much. He was an awesome dad. He did a great job with Derek and me, he loved us so much and even Lizzy, too. Fuck…" she complains as she starts crying again. "He's such an asshole! And I hate that I still love him so much!"

Sam sits helplessly in the backseat, not sure what to say. His own father would never have done such a thing. Sure, John was a mess of his own brand but he loved his wife to no end.

"This is exactly why, if you really want to be with me, you need to be patient with me… even if it's not fair that you have to do that. Even if you'd _never_ treat me like that."

"I'm not like him, Lou," Sam nearly laughs. "I would never sneak around. We have too much sex for me to want to."

"Ok, that's pretty funny," she lets him know through her tears without a smile. "But that's not what I mean."

He waits for her to compose her thoughts again, letting her take her time with how hard this is for her.

"Sam… I'm fucked up because of what my dad did. I have serious trust issues and I know I'm commitment-phobic because of it. I feel like if he could be like that when all outward appearances of him and his relationship with mom were so good… then every guy out there would do the same. Why do you think I hated Dean so much? I though he was dad all over again, duping someone I loved."

Sam nods. "Makes total sense now."

She wipes her face with her free hand again. "I'm sorry I'm so damaged. I'm sorry my dad made me panic every damn time I've ever gotten close to a guy. And I'm sorry that I've fallen for you hard enough to give it an honest go because sometimes I'm gonna go cold and distant out of fear. And I'm gonna second guess this when I know I shouldn't. And even if you've proven yourself… I'm going to get weird and suspicious and not trust you. But I promise I'll work on it. I will try my damnedest, Giant. I swear." She looks at him good. "I mean it. I love you and I want this. For the first time ever I don't want to run away. I don't want to be like this. I _hate_ being like this… I hate what he did to me…."

"Hey, hey, hey," Sam stops her, seeing how quickly she's starting to really dissolve into sobs. He leans forward and pulls her tight, hugging her over the seat. "Lou, it's ok to have bad experiences with parents. I mean, Dean and I practically majored it parental damage."

"Still not fair to you," she cries as she hugs him hard, her chin on his shoulder as tears fall.

"Not to you either," Sam agrees completely. "But you don't have to let him win. You kill any more good relationships and you're just letting that side of him win."

Lou just cries a little more and Sam grabs her arms, pulling her carefully over the bench seat and into him. She curls up in his lap with her arms around his neck, Sam holding her as she lets go and is honest about her cheating father for the first time in her life.

"I didn't let my dad win," Sam explains. "I left the second I could. I didn't let him control my future."

"You're a hunter, honey. He won," she says with a shaky voice.

"No, I'm a hunter because fate or whatever didn't let me be anything else. If it were only dad I was up against I'd still be at school. Hell, I'd be a lawyer by now."

"With your big house and your trophy wife?" she says through calming sobs.

"Don't sell yourself short. You'd make a great trophy wife."

"Ew, don't talk about marriage."

"You started it," Sam lightly reminds her.

"Then I take it back," she says in a very down tone. "I can't even talk about sticking with one person for more than a month. Fuck marriage. I'm never getting married."

"Never, huh?" Sam questions, not having known that about her.

"No…" she trails off, unsure of how he feels about that. "I hope you don't think… Like, you didn't want to…"

"It's only been weeks, Lou," Sam reminds her, their time together still short despite how strong their bond already is. "Relax."

Lou nods. "And I wouldn't even know you if you stayed at school. You wouldn't hunt anymore."

"Ok…" Sam sees her point. "Then maybe it's good fate won."

"Stop being so fucking sweet. Makes me feel weird."

"You're so difficult," Sam says with a smile.

"That's the whole problem."

"And I can handle that. After growing up with Dean and dad I'm great at dealing with difficult people," Sam says, joking slightly but making a valid point. "Lou, not every guy is like your dad. Well, yeah, some of us suck but some of us aren't so bad. You can't run away and give up every time just in case you get hurt. You'll miss out on some of the not so bad ones."

"You better be a not so bad one then," Lou warns through her sadness.

"I like to think I'm alright," Sam answers lightly. "Just… don't run away from this. We waited a really long time for this."

"I know," she sighs and takes her arms back. Instead she balls up and leans into him, not leaving his lap. "I missed you so much."

"I missed you too, so fuck everything you've seen and fuck everything I've seen and let's just… see better stuff. Together. No more bullshit."

"I want that," Lou tells him, sniffling once more as she finally finds it in her to calm down. "What about Amy?"

"I'm still mad about Amy," Sam says with pure honesty. "I don't know if I'll ever not be mad about Amy. I need time with that one and I'll need to regain your trust… but I'm not gonna lose you over it. And I like to think that, now that we've talked, you wouldn't do that if you had a do over. You'd trust me."

Lou just keeps quiet on that one.

"You wouldn't kill her again… would you?" Sam asks, curious to see if she would or not.

And Lou doesn't lie. "I wouldn't." She doesn't say that it's not because Amy didn't deserve to die. Lou still feels that she did. She wouldn't do it again purely based on not wanting this fight to happen all over again.

"Then I can live with this," Sam promises, looking down at her small frame.

"I can't believe you didn't dump my ass after that," she says quietly. "I thought I ruined this for good."

"No, not yet," Sam informs her and he looks at her.

"You yelled at me," she looks up at him. "You're really scary when you want to be."

"I didn't know about everything," Sam admits, his face fallen as he looks at her, balled up like a little kid just like when he visited her as a child. They read James and the Giant Peach and she fell asleep in his lap, sitting against him just like this. "I shouldn't have yelled like that," Sam confesses as he brushes blonde stands out of her eyes, just like that night in the past.

"You had every right to."

"Well, I'm not as mad as before if that helps."

"A little."

"And I don't give up easily."

She smiles small at him because honestly that's all she's ever wanted. Lou was afraid of being alone forever, never being able to figure out how to trust and be in a relationship. But she also never assumed she'd find someone that she'd be willing to push her comfort level for. For Sam she's willing to make herself confront her problems. She's willing to fix herself.

She's willing to do a whole lot for this one man.


	14. Be Not So Fearful

Eyes fluttering open, or rather eye fluttering open as the other is swollen shut, Lizzy looks up at the wooden ceiling above her. She can't remember where she is. This isn't her room at Bobby's. And the bed under her is awfully uncomfortable.

What the hell just happened?

Lizzy attempts to sit up and the second she does the fire in her side flares up to an excruciating level. She inhales hard with a rasp at how badly she's hurting and lays back down. "Fuck. Oh… shiiiit," she hisses out and holds her side lightly.

"L!?" Dean's panicky voice can suddenly be heard somewhere in the room but Lizzy can't see him. She just sees an empty cabin. "Mm, uh, Lizzy!?"

Dean's mussed up bed-head pops up into view from the floor and Lizzy jumps a little with it.

"Ow!" she says with the jump, her body flaring with pain.

"Hey, easy!" Dean immediately says to her and is on his knees, leaning over the couch and making sure she relaxes back down before further hurting herself. "Lay down. All the way."

"What… the hell?"

"What?" Dean asks her, already pulling up her shirt to check on her side.

"Why are you on the floor? Fuck!" Lizzy complains when he presses too hard on her ribs.

"Damn it, sorry," he immediately says, lifting his hands off of her. "I barely touched you."

"Yeah, well, trust me when I say they're broken," she struggles out, taking even shallow breaths to recuperate. "Fuck… everything hurts."

"Stay put. I'll get you some pain killers and more ice."

"I need to pee."

Dean nods and thinks. "Can you hold off a little bit? Get meds in your system and then go?"

Lizzy nods, her face screwed up in agony and Dean's flying around getting ice and water for her to swallow her pills.

As she concentrates on breathing so that her side didn't hurt so damn much she can hear a tiny, small bit of fussing from the floor. She would smile if her mouth wasn't so damaged. Dean and Sammy slept downstairs all night. They never left her side.

"Ok, we're gonna go really slow," Dean warns her as he places the bowl of ice, dish towels, and her glass of water on the floor. He then helps her move, inch by inch, until she's seated upright with her feet on the floor. After the white hot pain subsides she takes a look and sees her little boy, wide awake on the floor atop their comforter from upstairs and looking around the room, his feet kicking away.

"Did he sleep through the night?" she asks hopefully, not remembering anything after taking her pills last night and Dean telling her to rest.

"Yeah… no way," Dean huffs a small laugh. "He woke up twice."

"I didn't even hear him."

"You were knocked out pretty hard," Dean tells her, handing over two pills and the water. "That happens when you save an entire house of people from a god all by yourself."

"So all it took was killing a god to earn myself one uninterrupted night?" Lizzy asks as she puts the pills in her mouth and struggles a bit to swallow the water down.

"Yep," Dean says with a smile despite his worries. His heart hurts with how much pain she's in. He'd take it all from her and double it if he could.

"I gotta kill more gods."

"Motherhood, huh?" he jokes and just smirks at her with her attitude despite how she must feel. "What hurts the most?"

"Ribs. Definitely."

"From what I can tell they aren't displaced so…"

"I just have to wait it out. I know," Lizzy says, eying her son. "He hungry?"

"Probably, but he can eat after I check you over." Dean takes the glass from her and sets it aside. "Your face is a mess."

"If that's how you talk to women then I don't get the extensive past."

Dean just shoots her a look. "Your eye is barely open."

"I don't think the socket's broken or anything though."

"Good. And your jaw is bruised up pretty badly and you got a really fat lip."

"My teeth are a little loose I think. Fucking bitch had a hell of right hook." She begins tracing the new contours of her face with light fingertips and sighs. "Uh. I'm Joseph Merrick."

"No, you're fine. Just… rearranged a little," Dean tells her, sitting on the coffee table across from her.

Lizzy stops worrying for a second as she watches her husband pick up Sammy and place him in his lap. She looks at him and her mood shifts. "I hate our life."

"It isn't great," Dean agrees, looking at Sammy also. "I… I fucked this all up. I shouldn't have gone."

"It's over," Lizzy shrugs, not wanting to rehash that whole conversation again.

"It _is_ over," Dean says sincerely, looking right at her. "I'm out."

She looks at him with shock. "What do you mean?"

"I mean… I quit. I'm not doing this shit anymore. I put your life and Sammy's life in jeopardy and that's not something I can handle. I'm done."

She stares at him for a minute, afraid to accept this.

"I thought you'd be, I don't know… happy or something," Dean says with disappointment when she doesn't let on to what she's thinking. "Isn't this what you wanted?"

"I want nothing more than for you to ditch this life," Lizzy explains herself. "But I need you to do this for you. Not for me and Sammy. If you don't do this because you want this… then it'll never work. You'll never be happy."

Dean glances at Sammy and composes his thoughts, making sure she understands him clearly. "The only thing I need to make me happy is my family. Without you…." He stops for a second. "I need you. I need Sammy. That's it."

She actually believes him and he can tell.

"And Baby," he adds in.

Lizzy rolls her eyes and tries to smile, humming with pain when she does. "Ok, then… we get out. We get in Baby and we run away."

"When you're better," Dean stipulates. "You aren't going anywhere until you're ready to."

"Fair enough," she agrees. They both look at each other and the tension that has been building between them with their disagreement over hunting is gone. For the first time they are totally on the same page. They'll figure out the details later, explain to their little family in the cabin that they're leaving… and they go.

"Can I ask you something?" Dean starts as he thinks something over from the previous day. The memories of it all just won't seem to leave him alone, especially the whole coming to and finding his wife in the condition she was in.

"Always."

"Why didn't the Fury try and guilt you too?" Dean asks, knowing that if she did Lizzy wouldn't have been able to kill her off. "I mean, the rest of us fell apart under her spell."

"Oh, she tried," Lizzy answers. "She tried but… it didn't take."

Dead looks at her with shock. "The hell are you talking about?"

She shrugs with only her shoulder on her healthy side. "She tried to guilt me but it didn't work on me."

"Why not?" he questions, not understanding at all.

"I don't carry guilt with me anymore," Lizzy explains. "I let it all go."

"How?"

"I had a son," Lizzy tells him. "I've realized that I don't have time to be burdened by guilt anymore."

The incredulous face Dean gives her lets her know he doesn't understand this at all.

"I'm not saying I haven't fucked up," she tells him. "I still think that my fate has caused a lot of death and destruction. My parents, Lou's parents, Lou, every innocent person I couldn't save… but in the end a lot of that was caused by the fact that God's a dick to me. He set me up for failure, you too." Dean nods at her, getting that. "And the rest of it… well, I've always had the best of intentions. All I've ever done is try and do the right thing. Sometimes I didn't but I did try. I never sat by and didn't act. Maybe I should feel guilty as hell for some things but… I don't anymore. I've been through enough. I need to be a good mom and for me personally that means ditching my guilt."

Dean cups her face on her undamaged side, adoring her more than ever.

"So she couldn't get to me. I don't have any guilt for her to work with."

Leaning forward, Dean presses a kiss to the right corner of her mouth, the only part that isn't bruised and swollen.

"Hot Shot?" Lizzy speaks up.

"Yeah?"

"Can you help to me to the bathroom now?" she asks lightly. "I'm gonna explode."

Dean huffs a laugh and gets up to put Sammy in his carrier. "Come on up, gimpy."

"Fuck that name," Lizzy grumbles and he grabs her, slowly getting her on her feet.

"Sorry," he says once she's up, an arm around her shoulders. "You prefer punching bag?"

"I prefer the most beautiful woman in the world," Lizzy rebuts, finally finding that ease within their relationship that she's been missing for a while now.

"Not right now you aren't!" Dean tells her and she tries to hit him, hurting her side in the process.

"Fuck you," she says, blaming him for that moment of pain. "Just get me to the bathroom so I can feed Sammy. He'll wake the damn cabin soon if I don't."

"Ok, ok," Dean relents as they make their slow way. "You wanna eat something too? Probably should with the pain killers you just took."

"Eating is gonna hurt so bad," she complains a bit, not looking forward to it.

"Then… scrambled eggs?" Dean suggests something soft and easy.

"I can do that."

"Scrambled eggs it is," he says to her as they walk through the bathroom door together.

Key word there… together.

* * *

A day later and the group finds themselves outside in the early spring morning. Once Lizzy was mobile she insisted on moving around for a little while despite her pain. She knew if she didn't there could be some serious complications and none of them can risk heading out to a hospital right now. Never know what's lurking in those places that just want to eat you for dinner.

"You got it?" Dean asks her with serious concern, staying very close to her just in case she needed help.

She just smiles and arches her unhurt eyebrow, telling him he's been too much. She adores his concern but sometimes he's a little intense.

Dean rolls his eyes as she silently tells him to calm down.

Once they join the rest of the house already out back, Sammy in Bobby's arms as that seems to be his default when not with his parents lately, Dean sighs a little as he pulls out a worn, old wallet and a dusty Phillie's hat with the team's late nineties logo on it.

"They were good guys," Dean says to their group as he holds the items in his hands, all of them around a small fire Sam got going just for this purpose. "Really good. And… they shouldn't be gone."

He pauses, his voice choked a bit and he swallows it down. He thinks hard about it, about how Buck and Wade lived their lives and how it ends for them. No one will know them. No one beside these people around the fire and a few others out in the shadows could understand what they've done. And what do they leave the world? A few less monsters… and a hat and a wallet.

Dean doesn't want that to become him.

"They deserve to move on. Rest easy," Dean says. "They've earned that."

Bobby holds his grandson tighter and watches on, hating that he has to bid farewell to yet two more friends. His life has been nothing but loss.

Without another word, Dean drops the items into the fire, destroying what he thinks are the only things that could keep two good men tied to this twisted Earth. The hunters all stand around and watch as the flames do their work.

Dropping an arm around Lizzy's shoulders, Dean looks at her questioningly. She peers back up at him and nods slightly, having talked over the situation enough in the past day to know that their decision is final and a good one. If he can handle this change then she's fully in and they can figure it out.

"Uh…" Dean starts and clears his throat. "L and I wanted… to tell you guys something." The three others look up from the fire and at Dean. "We talked about it… and after the past few days we decided... we can't do this."

"Do what?" Sam asks immediately, his heart almost skipping with what he prays his brother is about to say.

"This," he points to the freshly dug and covered over grave just feet away that holds the Fury. "All of this." He waves his arm at the old, small cabin. He glances at Sammy as Lizzy leans her unharmed side into him. "This life isn't safe for us. It's not safe for Sammy. That Fury found him and who's to say that if we stay in this life we won't lead another monster to our doorstep."

"We have to be parents first now," Lizzy says to the ground, unable to look at her sister for this. She just got Lou back and the idea of not being with her every day kills her. But she's a mom. Tough decisions are in her new job description. "So we're leaving."

"What?" Lou asks, her chest filled with panic. "Leaving where?"

"We don't know yet," Dean tells her. "But it'll be somewhere off the grid a bit. Somewhere safer. Somewhere…."

"That we aren't," Sam says, his eyes widened with the same panic Lou is feeling. "You're running from us."

"No, no," Lizzy denies immediately. "That's not it at all. We're not running from you guys. You're our family and we don't… we just…." She looks at Lou and her eyes water instantly with how hurt she looks already. "If we stay with you… we'll be hunting. And we _both_ are not gonna hunt anymore. We can't."

Dean can feel the eyes on him instantly.

"You're really out?" Bobby asks him, the older man's voice so full of hope that it's refreshing.

Dean nods. "I have to be."

"Well I'll be damned," Bobby answers, looking down at Sammy. His heart drops with the idea that he won't see the little boy all that often once they go but that the same time it lifts with the idea that he'll be safe, truly safe, for the first time in his short life.

It's silent in the small circle as everyone settles in with the idea for a moment.

"Wait," Lou shakes her head as she takes a few steps around the fire towards her sister. "You're just gonna pack up and go? When… when will we see you guys?"

They don't necessarily have an answer for that. "Once we figure out where we're going we'll let you know," Dean says to them. "We find a secure place, settle in, then… you can come see us anytime."

Lou huffs a laugh and walks away for a second, hating this already.

"You gotta go deep," Sam says, looking at his brother with a very serious face. "You do this… you don't fuck it up."

"I wouldn't," Dean promises him, knowing Sam will have his back on this play.

"I mean it. You gotta… ward wherever you set up, against angels and demons and everything else in between. You gotta change you names, change your license plates…"

"We'll do it all," Lizzy assures him. "We'll be safer than ever. We just can't keep doing this to Sammy anymore." She speaks to Sam while her eyes follow Lou closely, her sister pacing the tree line as she looks about ready to crumble.

Sam nods and, despite his fear of being without Dean in their fucked up world, he can see that this has to happen. Nothing is more important than keeping that little boy safe. They're good parents for doing this.

"I'll hook you up with a guy I know. Frank," Bobby lets them know. "He can get you some new identities. He's real good, can even get you in the system so this guy can go to school when the time comes."

"That would be awesome," Lizzy smiles for the first time in this conversation. Anytime she sees hope for Sammy she's at her happiest.

"Honestly, this whole thing is awesome," Bobby tells her, rubbing Sammy's back. "I'm not sayin' I'm ready to bid farewell to seeing this one everyday… but if he's safe it don't matter. I'll get over it. Plus I'll get to spoil him every time I visit. I'll have an excuse to." He smiles at Sammy and the baby reaches for his beard, grasping a hand into it.

"Thank you, Bobby," Lizzy gratefully says, her eyes welling up with how kind he's being about this very difficult decision.

"How long before you leave?" Sam asks them, his mind already churning with ways to make this easy and safe for them. Planning is way easier than dwelling on the moment of their departure anyways.

"When L's ready," Dean answers him. "We're not taking any family road trips when every bump in the road will feel like a knife in the side."

"So… about a week then? Maybe two?" Sam thinks aloud. "We can get you set up by then. We'll get you everything you need, find you a destination that'll be safe, get you some money to start off…"

"No," Lou finally speaks up as she start to march back towards the circle. "You guys can't leave yet."

"Louie," Lizzy's voice says with sorrow. "Please don't make this harder…"

"I just got you back!" she says to her sister. "I lost you for four years! I just get you back and, and you wanna leave?"

"It's not about want," Lizzy reminds her, letting her know how much she's about to miss her too.

"I… fuck, Lizzy! You're gonna take my nephew away?" she asks, her own eyes red and ready to overflow. "I just met him."

"Oh, Louie…" Lizzy starts to cry. "I know. I don't want to take him away from his family, I don't."

Lou stands there, hands on hips, and stares at Lizzy for a moment. She understands, she does, but the panic and fear don't let her gracefully accept this yet. "What am I gonna do without you?"

Lizzy lets out a sob at the idea alone. "What am _I_ gonna do with _you_?" she turns it right around. "Please don't make this worse than it already is, Louie. It hurts. I don't want to leave you… but I have to. I know you understand. I know you do."

Lou nods rapidly and blinks away her tears before she breaks down. "Yeah, I get it. I just fucking hate it."

Lizzy takes a deep breath before shaking her head. "I have to go inside."

She turns away from the group and makes her slow way towards the cabin. Once she's gone Dean looks at Lou. "What the hell?"

"Screw you, douche bag," Lou responds as she goes back to her default.

"This was a really tough decision for her to make. You need to know that."

She looks at Dean with heartache. "I've missed her every day for four years. I missed her wedding, my nephew being born… I missed so much. I didn't mean to make it worse but what the hell did you expect from me? A smile and a wave while I send you off to who knows where? I'll never see her. I'll barely see Sammy and… holy shit, I can't believe I'm gonna say this, but… I'll never see _you_ either."

This one actually hits Dean right in the heart. Lou admitted she'll miss him.

"I don't want to let you guys just go and, and… I'm not ready for that," she truthfully explains.

"Neither are we," Dean admits, eyes shooting over to his brother. Lizzy isn't the only one ready to leave their sibling. "But we all agree that Sammy comes first. His safety is everything."

Lou nods in agreement.

"So… we have to do this. I know myself. If I stay here, see you guys hunting… I won't stay put. I'll be out there with you and that's not an option anymore. After this last hunt we all know that's true."

"No one's arguing that," Sam assures his big brother, the one who's having to make yet another horribly difficult decision based on what's best for his family. "We're just surprised. This is a big change. A good one but, still… big."

"You guys supporting us would go really far. Especially with L right now. You think this is tough on you guys, ha," Dean tells them, making sure they understand the toll this is taking on his wife.

"We know Liz," Bobby confirms for him. "We're all gonna make sure we don't make her feel bad about doing what's right here." He looks pointedly at Lou.

Lou just shakes her head and walks off towards the woods.

"Where you going?" Sam asks her as she marches on without stopping. "Lou!" Sam calls to her and she pulls her handgun out of the back of her jeans and holds it up for him to see before replacing it, walking the whole time. She then disappears into the trees.

"She just needs a minute, man," Dean tells Sam. He's the same way. When things get overwhelming he disappears and needs time to think.

"She's gonna be a mess with this," Sam says, worrying already.

"Yeah but she'll get over it." Dean looks at Sam for a second. "How 'bout you?" he questions, locking eyes with his brother solidly for the first time through this conversation.

Sam just stares back for a minute. "It'll be weird."

"Yeah," Dean huffs out, knowing that being without Sam has always felt weird to him.

"But it's not about me," Sam tells him, making sure his brother doesn't worry about him within this decision. "It's about you. It's about Sammy. It's about living your life the way you should. I think this is the best thing you and Lizzy could do right now."

"Yeah?" Dean asks.

"Yeah. Definitely," Sam smiles small. "You got my blessing or whatever."

Dean nods, looking down at the fire as it eats the last evidence of Buck and Wade's existence on the Earth. "You know… when you're ready… we'll have room for you." Dean looks his brother hard in the eye, making sure he gets it.

Sam huffs a laugh. "Alright." He doesn't know if the day will come that he'll be able to take up that offer but it's there and that's comforting in its own way.

"Well, looks like we got some planning to do," Bobby says with a hint of excitement, walking towards the house with Sammy. He's not gonna put this kid down for the next week or two, not until he has to say goodbye to him.

The men get back into the cabin, letting the fire put itself out, and Sam shoots a text to Lou.

_If you need me you just let me know._

It isn't for another twenty minutes that he gets one back.

_I'm fine._

And that's exactly how he knows she's not.

* * *

_**THE END**_

_**Please put me on Author alerts if you'd like to know when the next story is published.**_


End file.
